


For a Lost Daughter

by bonnie_wee_swordsman



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 50,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7140902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonnie_wee_swordsman/pseuds/bonnie_wee_swordsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Faith Fraser comes back into Jamie and Claire’s lives as an adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Paris, Jamie and Claire make preparations for the Voyage across the sea to rescue Young Ian. Claire visits Faith's grave. The Frasers encounter an unexpected face from their past, bearing the most unexpected of news.

**December 1766**  
**Paris**

“ _I had brought a flower, a pink tulip….. I knelt down and laid it on the stone, stroking the soft curve of the petal with a finger, as though it were a baby’s cheek_ ”  
                                                                 -Voyager, Diana Gabaldon

**The gravestone was surprisingly warm against my cheek.** The December day was chilly, and the spot shaded by the high wall, but the stone seemed barely cooler than my own skin.

I breathed a silent prayer of thanks for my sentinel, just out of sight behind the buttresses. _Sentinels_ , I corrected myself, thinking of Bouton the younger. They would keep any would-be mourners at bay. No one would stumble upon the spectacle of an otherwise respectable lady laying full-length on the boggy ground, damp and plant matter ruining both skirts and coiffure with surprising speed and thoroughness.

_Not that gawkers would bloody stop me_ , I thought. I had managed for over a year in Paris society— _Versailles society, no less_!—and its lifeblood of extravagance, custom, etiquette, intrigue, gossip, and scandal. Had incited quite a lot of the latter three myself, come to that, albeit unintentionally. I’d been accused of being, among other things, a sorceress, a bringer of plague upon helpless ships, and a procuress of innocent young girls. And those were merely my Parisian credentials, to say nothing of my reputation in Scotland. I certainly wouldn’t have allowed whispers or imperious glances trouble me now.

No, it wasn’t fear of gossip that made me grateful for the curated quiet of the tiny yard. It was simply the chance to be alone. To enjoy a few precious moments in private with my daughter.

I swallowed. The sharp edges of beveled stone flowed smoothly under my fingertips as I traced each letter. FAITH.

My stomach lurched sharply, a niggling reminder of the morning’s betrayal. I’d carefully avoided Jamie since breakfast, even resorting to the galling trope of feigning headache to avoid inquiries about my plans for the day. If asked so outright, I was certain that my glass face would betray my guilty conscience. Or that Jamie would suggest accompanying me, which was the last thing I wanted.

He might well have guessed that Faith was buried was here—under the care of the sisters with whom I had spent so many months at the _Hôpital des anges_ —but I had never told him so.

Another clutching of guilt; this one deeper and distinctly denunciatory. It was in Jenny Murray’s voice that my conscience read the charges, though not the Jenny I’d known and loved as a sister. This Jenny had fire in her eyes and deadly ice in her voice.

“ _What kind of_ woman,” she snarled,” _goes out of her way to keep an honest man—who loves ye, despite the twenty years he’s suffered on your account while ye were God knows where—from saying proper prayers over his bairn? Knowingly keeps him from any small comfort or absolution it could bring him_?”

_A, cold-hearted, selfish bitch, Jenny, that’s what kind_. And so be it. _Forgive me, Jamie_ , I thought, with a pang. Even if it pained him to learn of it later, this visit had to be alone, for Faith belonged to me in a way she could never belong to him.

He had loved her and mourned for her just as I had. But only I would ever be able to describe the touch of the downy skin. The two tiny ears, sticking out just enough to be comical. The unearthly scent of her. Memory of Faith’s existence outside of the womb—and those numbed, raw months in my empty-shell body that followed— belonged to only me.

“Hello, sweetheart," I said. My voice was hoarse, halting, but I needed to speak to her aloud, just as I had needed to lay my head against the stone. To affirm that she had been real, a person, and not just a fragment of a nightmare long ago.

“Oh, little one,” I exhaled, laying my palm over the marble cherub’s wings that sheltered her, “How much you mattered.”

All the trying and disappointment with Frank. The utter sweetness of Jamie as he bravely talked about all the reasons it was just as well I was barren. The deep sadness of not being able to give him the gift of his blood. The knowledge that our love—to us, ultimate—had been declared utterly finite. And further still, the creeping darkness of Wentworth Prison that had nearly taken Jamie out of my reach forever. All of it had exploded in a firework of happiness at the moment of our joint knowledge of Faith’s coming.

Grief and longing stabbed me through. The short time when Faith shared my body was the closest Jamie and I would ever have to something like our own family, together. How different would our lives have been, if Faith had lived? Would we still have gone back to Scotland? Would the Bonnie prince still have coerced our participation in his bloody affairs?  Would our lives still have shattered with the axe blow of Culloden?

She would have been twenty-two now.

I blinked, shaking my head to clear away the mists of so many years. There was no changing the past, I reminded myself bitterly, and little to be gained from dwelling upon it. It soldiers on, whether we will it or no.

I stood, smoothing my ruined skirt and pulling my cloak tightly around me. I heard Mother Hildegarde and Bouton stir.

I experienced the most bizarre juxtaposition of imagining myself sizing up the scene through the lens of the camera Frank had given me that last Christmas in Boston. The pink tulip I had laid would have stood out brightly in the glossy print, all vibrant and dewy curves against pale winter grass and white of stone. The violets, too, with their delicate faces flecked with gold. It had been the sight of them that had prompted my first tears, not the sight of the grave itself, touched beyond measure that someone else kept Faith’s memory here.

"Sweet dreams, my love."

The lump in my throat was even thicker as I passed between the buttresses. How many times had I whispered those words while turning on a night-light, or smoothing red curls against a pillowcase?

It was for two lost daughters that I mourned.  

 

* * *

 

 

**“Is that you, _Sassenach_?” came the muffled voice.**

Jamie was seated at the small table in our chamber, his face slumped on the heels of his hands.  

I walked softly up to him, trying to keep my breathing and face steady. I faltered in my stride, thinking of an excuse that could take me downstairs, outside, anywhere to avoid questions about day’s activities. _Coward_ , spat Jenny’s spectre.

He turned to me without looking, though, pulling me toward him and resting his head against my breast. He had been crying.

"What is it, Jamie? Is it your hand? I can prepare you a—"

“Ian,” he croaked.  

I relaxed, cradling him tenderly against me with a small sound of understanding. I could feel his scalp, hot and slightly damp under my fingers.

Young Ian. As dear as his own son would have been, taken from right under our noses to God knows where. I shuddered, thinking back to the mists of the silkies’ island and our mad, futile gallop to the departing ship.  

“My poor lad,” he moaned.

“We’ll find him, Jamie. If they meant to kill him, they’d have done it right then when they had the French treasure in hand.”

“Aye, but that’s just the thing, _Sassenach_.” Jamie straightened, eyes full of pain, “They should have cut his throat on the spot. The fact that they didn’t means they have some use for him, so…” He shrugged, swallowing, “I’m kept up these nights scairt to death thinking on what use they might have wi’ a young lad.”

“Ian’s young...and gawky...” I agreed, thinking of the lad’s fine, light bones. I held Jamie back from me slightly to look him in the eyes, “...but he’s a true Fraser brawler for all that. He won’t be coaxed into anything he doesn't want to do without a fight. And given the opportunity, he’ll find a way to escape. According to Jenny and Ian, he’s quite the master.”  

Jamie laughed, and I gave him a squeeze, both of us grateful for the moment of levity.

I placed a kiss on his forehead, another on his mouth, and settled in the chair next to him, examining the papers that were strewn about the tabletop. “Are the preparations advancing?”

“Aye, just the few last things to be settled. We’ll need to set sail from Le Havre no later than the 18th in order to make the rendezvous wi’ Fergus and the others.”

“Will you come wi’ me tomorrow? I should like your opinion on the final provisioning, and I imagine you’ll want to replenish your wee herbs.”

“Of course,” I said, making up my marketing list and mentally adding Dietician and Ship’s Surgeon to my ever-expanding curriculum vitae.

We lay awake that night for some time, both talking intently of ships, provisions, and figures, neither of us eager to acknowledge the heaviness and sadness that hung above us.

When they came at last, my dreams were of silkies and cherub wings.

 

* * *

 

**I** **had led Jamie on quite the merry chase in search of the “wee herbs.”** The pawn broker had given me the names of several that I might call upon in place of the long-absent Master Raymond. Krasner’s stocks had been serviceable, but I still lacked several items I needed in order to sufficiently complete my medicine box for the voyage. I had had higher hopes for Madame Verrue and thankfully, they were met.

I grasped the packet against my chest, stepping out into the street as Jamie settled the bill with Madame Verrue. The wind whipped sharply down the street, stinging my eyes with tears. My vision was so greatly blurred, in fact, that I ran head-long into a ghost.

I blinked, gaping. In my shock, my voice came out in my sternest Chief of Surgical Staff tones, “You are most certainly meant to be dead.”

He was dressed less flamboyantly than I remembered. The style of wig was new, and distinctive. But it was him. Unmistakably.

The Comte looked me up and down with a sneer, and some other expression I couldn’t quite place. When he spoke, though, his voice was as cold as I remembered. “Until recently, I had thought the same of your condition“Until recently, I had thought the same of your condition. _Mais, l’original, cette fois_.”

I felt Jamie’s presence loom up behind me, knowing without having to look that his hand was resting on sword hilt. This was not lost on the Comte. He met Jamie’s eye with a look like grim resignation. “Of course. Raymond will have told you everything?”

“ _Raymond_?” I exclaimed, delight temporarily overriding fear and shock, “My God, he’s still here? In Paris? Where–”

Jamie cut me off, “Not here, aye?” He gestured to a narrow alley. He was right of course. Being seen publicly with this man—not to mention speaking of the other—could come to no good.

It was not a pleasant spot, just the meeting place of the backs of several large buildings, full of stacked crates and piles of rubbish. A mangy cat sat stooped on a nearby step, gnawing on the long-dead carcass of a small bird, but otherwise we were alone.

The silence was an awkward one. While we’d taken pains to secrete ourselves to an isolated spot, we didn’t actually have any business with the man, other than my curiosity about Raymond. The Comte’s eyes were still fixed on me, wide, scouring over me.

Jamie made the first move, making an elegant and surprisingly un-ironic leg. “Monsieur le Comte. I trust ye are well.”

The Comte had scarcely taken his eyes from me since our encounter, but I could have sworn I saw the slightest ripple in the steely countenance as Jamie stepped forward. A flinch, as if he were expecting a blow.  But he said nothing, nor did he take his eyes from me.  

Jamie’s jaw tightened, and I wondered for a moment if he _would_ hit the man. He tried again, his tone still polite,“ My wife and I are in Paris but for a short while–only long enough to secure provisions for a journey to the Indies, where my sister’s son has been taken. If ye’ve news of Master Raymond, we’ll thank ye for it most kindly, as he was a particular friend of my wife’s. But time is of great importance and we must be on our way with all haste.”

A very pretty speech, I thought. The casual observer would never have supposed that its recipient had once made quite free with death threats and curses against the speaker’s beloved wife.

The Comte must have been struck by the strangeness of it as well, for his stare turned to fix on Jamie, now tinged with unease. His voice was cold, but unmistakably bewildered.

“Your courtesy astounds me, Fraser. In truth, I was expecting paternal vengeance. Surely old age has not softened your resolve to so great an extent?”

I glanced quickly to Jamie. His brow had furrowed. This strange statement meant no more to him than it had to me. He spoke slowly, carefully, “The lad is certainly like a son to me. But unless you’re telling me it was on your orders that he was taken from Scotland, I shouldnae see why—“

The Comte snorted, “I knew nothing of this boy—captured or not—until you mentioned him just now. It was your daughter of whom I spoke.”  

The shock fell over me instantly, to the bone, like a sheet of cold water. Jamie’s face bore the same look mine must have. We had told _no one_ about Brianna, not even Jenny or Ian. No other soul on this side of the stones knew she existed.

Oh God. Had Bree come through after me? The water turned to ice in my heart, expanding and squeezing, about to shatter. Had she braved the stones and fallen into the wrong hands in trying to find us? _Christ_ , Bree, what were you _thinking_?

I squared my shoulders, struggling to keep my voice and face calm. “How—how do you know about her?“

His smile was cold and coy. “Oh, I have made her acquaintance… _personally_ …” He was enjoying this. “Very lovely indeed. An unusually tall _mademoiselle_ , _non_?”

I pressed my lips tight to keep from screaming. My hands shook, imagining all the nightmare scenarios involving Bree in the hands of this man.

Jamie, though, merely snorted derisively, “Any man with eyes could guess that no child of ours would likely be small of stature. And I’ve seen a number of Parisian lassies tall enough to spit in my eye, were they of a mind.”

He turned his back to the count, grabbing my hands hard in his own, “He’s only trying to frighten us, _Sassenach_. It’s naught but a trick, like a gypsy fortune teller saying to ‘beware a dark-heided man,’ knowing you’ll have ten to choose from the moment ye leave the tavern door. Just lies and trickery.” He put a firm hand on my cheek, giving me a small shake of reassurance, and whispering low so only I could hear. “ _He doesnae know about Brianna_.”

The Comte toyed with the carved head of his walking stick, his eyes cast downward almost coquettishly, “To be sure, Monsieur Fraser, but surely not all tall Parisian _lassies_ ,” languorously parodying the word, “have a mark behind the ear….in the shape of a diamond?”

Gasp and sob tore from my throat simultaneously. The cat, startled, scuttled into the shadows of the crates with her rotting prize in tow. I staggered, vision reeling uncontrollably. Not even Jamie knew about Bree’s birthmark.

My reaction must have been all the confirmation Jamie needed. His eyes went wild, and in a moment, his blade was pressed hard against the man’s throat.

“And what _exactly_ ,” Jamie growled, enunciating each syllable contemptuously, “did ye do to our daughter to have been expecting my ‘paternal vengeance?’”

The count laughed—actually _laughed_. Had I the use of my legs at that moment, I would have crossed the short distance between us and torn him apart with my bare hands.  As it was, I swayed, unable to move, heart pounding in my ears.

Jamie shook him violently, teeth gritted, pressing the blade close, “Where have ye taken her?”

The laugh died but was replaced with a definite smirk. He spoke quietly, evenly. “I have not taken her anywhere. In fact, I have not seen her for some weeks.” He said, his composure not extending  _quite_ so far as to prevent him shrinking from the point of the sword.

Jamie’s glare was as dark and deadly as his voice, “If ye value your life— _and believe me, I do not share the sentiment_ —ye’ll tell me NOW what you’ve done to Brianna.”

“Brianna?” Her name sounded truly wrong in the Comte’s accent– the “r” all but lost in an airy gurgle. But the smirk had been replaced at long last with a look of true surprise. “ _Brianna_?” he repeated, “Raymond had said you had named the girl ‘ _Faith_.’”

I was falling. The dark, cold reaching out to engulf me.

My last memory before it closed around me was the Comte’s handsome, cruel eyes locked on mine.

**“She looks just like you.”**

 


	2. Ours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire must grapple with the news that their firstborn daughter may in fact be alive.

**Light rippled far above me on the half moons of the waves**. It didn’t occur to me to struggle. Just as well. My feet were cemented to the bottom, anyway. Dark blooms of hair billowed up around my face, swaying almost soothingly as I surrendered to the cold silence. The back of my head was warm, somehow, though. I was rocking back and forth; steady, but out of rhythm with the waves above.

Reality snapped into place, and I came to with the visceral gasp already ripping from me, centered fully on the need for air. The hand was firm on the back of my neck. The tone urgent. A question, though I couldn’t make out any words.

I blinked several times. Our bed at Jared’s. My shift damp and twisted about me. And I could breathe now. But the strangled, acidic burn of panic remained.

“Where—” I struggled to my knees, pushing free of the tangle of Jamie’s limbs around me. “ _Where is he_?” I gasped, half-expecting the Comte’s jeering face to emerge from the shadows.

“About his business, I expect.” Jamie shifted closer, studying me with deep concern. “Are ye alright, _mo chridhe_?”

I stumbled to my feet by the bedside, slackjawed and stuttering. “You—you just l- _let him go_?”

“Ye were out cold for hours, _Sassenach_ ,” he said, with a clear note of exasperation. “Of course I didnae just _let him go_. I arranged for Willoughby to transport ye to Jared’s while I continued my  _conversation_  wi’ the Comte.”

He gave a small, rueful smile. “Had to wait for the bugger to rouse, of course, and get him to some place more private in which to conduct our interview. Good thing the wee cat cannae talk—he’d have _quite_ the tale to tell about the great red Scot and the bitty chinaman dragging a fine lady and a Count unconscious across the cobbles.”

Catching my eye, he _very wisely_ abandoned all attempt at levity. He rose next to me, placing his hands softly on my hips.

“No, love. I didnae just let him go,” he repeated, low and gentle this time. He placed a kiss at my hairline and rested his head against mine. “Not until I got all the information he was able to give about… her.”

_Her.  
_

_Feeling her kicking. Kicking, and dying inside me. Watching our blood pool around me in the Bois de Boulogne. Her body, cold and heavy as a stone in my arms._

I lurched back from him, wrapping my arms tight around myself at once. “Tell me.”

Jamie was leaning slightly forward, clearly uneasy. “Well…It wasnae much in the way of _useful_ details, mind—”

“ _Tell me,_ ” I repeated. The voice was sharp. A commander on a battlefield, seeking reports.  It calmed me to hear it.

He nodded, and after a moment’s pause began, in the steady rhythms of a born storyteller. 

“The Comte tells that Master Raymond quitted Paris several years after we did, and wasnae to be seen for many years. The folk whispered of him long after he’d gone, though. You know what they’ll have said: sorcerer, fairy, or a demon, perhaps. Anytime a crop would fail, or sickness take the city, there would be such talk. All rubbish, of course. Only, in the last several years there were rumors that he’d been sighted once more.”

He poured two tumblers of whiskey from the bottle on the mantelpiece, holding one out to me. I shook my head, still clutching myself. He drained his glass in a single gulp.

“The Comte took great note of these sightings, tracing them so far as could be in hopes of finding the man. Seems he’d questions to ask of him—namely why he didnae kill him that night after all.” I shuddered, remembering. “All amounted to naught, no sign of him to be found. Four weeks ago, though, the Comte got word that the fish sellers on _Ile de la Cité_ had spotted a man that resembled the frog, so he went.” 

He paused at length, steeling himself. 

“He…saw her. She walked by him in the street, in the _Marché Neuf_ …He thought she was you.”

_L’original, cette fois,_ he’d said _._ This time, the original.

“When he saw ye— _her_ —he was stunned (for he had thought ye long dead), and she slipped away before he could speak to her. Melted into the crowds around the cathedral. But it didnae take long to find others who had sighted _la dame blanche_ abroad in Paris again.”

Jamie was facing me now, but his eyes were closed, brows furrowed. I experienced the most bizarre flashback to a young Bree in a Pilgrim costume, speaking carefully, nervously, trying to recall her lines word-for-word for the audience. 

“He tracked her down to a place—he gave me the address—where she’d been said to have been seen. She was there, _and_ Raymond, too, though he’d not known it. There was a—confrontation of some kind, during the course of which Raymond explained that she was your daughter, not you yourself. Hoped it would deter the Compte, for he’d tried to carry her away wi’ him. _Violently_. She struggled when he tried to lay hands on her, and he dealt her a blow that drew blood. Knocked her out cold.”

Jamie looked up, searching my face. “But before he knew it, the Comte was knocked out himself, and when he came to… they were both gone.” 

He exhaled deeply. I waited. “That’s all,” he said, dolefully. “The Compte’s an evil bastard, but I believe he told me truth of what he’d seen and heard, if not fully of his own motivations.” He scoffed darkly,“Got my ‘paternal vengeance’ in the end, I did. Just blows,” he added, gesturing to his knuckles, swollen and freshly scabbed. “I didnae think it prudent to do away wi’ him entirely, much as I’d have liked to, him our only source of information.” 

He downed the second whisky, speaking very quietly now. “So then…as of four weeks ago, she was here, in Paris…. and Raymond confirmed to him she was,” he swallowed, eyes closed “… _ours_.”

The fire crackled. I was suddenly aware that the tight hold around my middle had drifted downward, now sheltering a remembered swelling. I stared at it, unseeing. My ears were filling with a low, vibrating sound. Mechanical, almost. Like the massive generators at the hospital, whirring eternally.

I was barely listening now, but Jamie’s tone made me look up. The expression matched it, equal parts longing, pain, and hope. So like the one I’d seen just weeks before in the small room above the Edinburgh print shop.

“ _The diamond mark_ ,” he repeated, “ye dinna remember if she had—?“

“ _No_ , I don’t.” I spoke sharply, trying to silence the sounds of both my fire-eyed conscience— _How couldya no’ remember? Or no’ have noticed? Yer own child_ — and the humming. It was growing louder now. Not machines, though. _Wings_. The whir of insects. A swarm, approaching fast. 

“But…Brianna has?” he pressed. A curt nod.  

He rubbed his jaw, expression full of wonder, “God, both of them, then…”

Higher. Louder. Closer. I curled my hands into tight fists. Millions upon millions of papery wings, so fragile, so sharp, boring into my ears and into my consciousness.

Jamie was beside me now, reaching for me, eyes soft. “Claire—”

“ _No_.” I squeezed my eyes shut, braced every muscle in my body to keep _this_ out.

“ _Claire_ —”

“No!” I repeated, louder, harshly deflecting his touch, “I don’t believe it….I _won’t_ bloody believe it!” God, this house. _T _hese_ walls. _They_ had seen. _They_ held the memories_. They taunted me with them, and I prayed fervently for the dark water to take me down again.

Jamie, though, wasn’t a man to give in easily. “ _Sassenach_ , If ye’d  _heard_ him talk of her—”

“—and you trust  _his_ word over mine, _do you_?”

I rounded on him, panic finding sweet release in fury. “I held her _dead_ in my hands.” I shoved both of them hard against his chest, and he staggered. “Do you hear me, James Fraser?”

I shoved him again, eyes blazing directly into his. “She’s been dead for over twenty years. _Dead_. And you’d KNOW that if you’d—”

_If you’d been there._

I’d stopped myself just in time, but the words echoed between us as surely as though I’d screamed them.

He hadn’t shied from my blows, nor did he move now, his expression an inscrutable mask. I could see his Adam’s apple bob. Ashamed, I smoothed his shirtfront gently in meek apology. I could hear the servant girl tending the fire in the next room. The distant peal of the tiny bell that signaled the arrival of the dinner hour. My hands were shaking violently against his chest.

_Get a fucking grip on yourself, Beauchamp._

I went hastily to the table, arranging papers with an alarming energy. My controlled commander’s voice was back— _finally—_ and I clung to it with all my might. “It’s just like you said in the alley. This is just trickery and lies; the Comte getting his sick revenge at last for his damned ship. Just— _lies_.” My desperate need to believe the word perverted the “s” into a long, grotesque hiss.   

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jamie nod, mutely. He had settled on the end of the bed, hand resting on his jacket. His thumb stroked the packet of Brianna’s pictures through the sturdy fabric.  

I turned to the window, breathing heavily. My bravado was forced; surely that much was obvious to us both. But he couldn’t know what lay under that flimsy façade. A long-dormant memory, now festering, the tell-tale red streaks creeping up to infect rational thought.

_Master Raymond and a blue light, healing a body broken beyond repair. Mine._

Jamie’s voice was husky. Even above the thundering of blood in my ears, the tiny quiver of eagerness in it nearly broke my heart.

**“But we’ll seek out Raymond… just to make certain, aye?”**


	3. The Grace of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire encounter another familiar face on the road to Le Havre

**The carriage jostled mercilessly over every rock and hole in the damn, bloody road.** I regretted not coming more vocally to Jamie’s aid when he’d argued to Jared that we’d travel far faster on horseback, and be less prone to the whim of fate in the form of lost wheels or snapping spokes. He had relented in the end at Jared’s reminder of the need to transport the last of the supplies that had exceeded the capacity of the wagon that departed two days ago, chaperoned and proudly figureheaded by Willoughby.

Jamie seemed to be making the most of defeat, though. He was slumped in the corner, head lolled back in sleep. Positively cozy, by all appearances.  _Bloody man_ , I thought, jealously. The disadvantage of availing ourselves of Jared’s fastest, lightest coach and most indefatigable horses was that we were sloshed about, mile upon mile, like the contents of a drunkard’s flagon. Or _I was_ , anyway, sparing a glare at my slumbering husband. Still, I couldn’t resist the urge to lay my cloak over him, tucking it in around his broad shoulders.  

I sighed, staring out the small square window at the passing scenery. We were several hours still from Rouen, and evening was approaching. Provided the snow remained light, though, and the horses hardy enough to ride through the night, we would reach Le Havre by tomorrow noon; there to board _Artemis_ and begin our journey across the sea.

Who knew when, or if ever, we would return.

* * *

 

**I had made the decision for us the previous evening.**

The address the Comte had provided had revealed no more than a single room in an abandoned block of the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, practically crumbling beneath our feet. There were indeed indications of recent habitation and hasty flight. The blackened remnants of a banked fire. Vegetable peelings left to shrivel on the wooden table. A man’s jabot, crumpled in the shadows under the simple cot.

I was startled by the crunch of shards under my boot as I crossed over the threshold. The remnants of a tiny clay jar. I pinched up some of the scattered flakes it had contained. _Celandine_ , I decided, catching the acrid scent. A poppy variant used to induce sleep.

_Something an itinerant apothecary would carry._

This visit, and the days of endless inquiries that followed, though, produced nothing. Admittedly, Jamie and Jared’s Freemason network had led us to a few bribable individuals who’d spotted Raymond, even one or two who spoke of _la dame blanche_ , casting nervous eyes at me. But none of these sightings were more recent than the encounter described by the Comte, and none produced any clues as to their current whereabouts.

Jamie and I barely spoke apart from matters at hand; barely touched. But I could see the anguish that dogged him. He went through the days with brows drawn, jaw set. It was far more than the simple desire to find Raymond. Or even contemplation of the unfathomable things we might confront if we ever _did_ find him. It was the same, wrenching anxiety I felt in my own gut, knowing that with every day that passed, Young Ian slipped further and further out of our reach.

We had been searching for nearly a week, resorting to vainly scanning faces in crowds, and were already two full days past the date by which we had intended to leave Paris. Any more delays and we would surely miss our rendezvous with the _Artemis_ , and then with Fergus and the others to the north. The Comte had made it clear that Raymond’s sightings in Paris over the years had been sporadic, at best. It might be years before we gained any further news. And if the Comte was to be believed, Raymond might have had reason to have quitted Paris entirely. We both knew it. We were both afraid to speak the words. But someone had to.

I had begun packing up my medicine box, casting a look at Jamie from the corner of my eye. He was sitting at the desk, quill in hand, but not writing. Just staring into oblivion.

With a Herculean effort to ignore the lump in my throat, I spoke over my shoulder. “We’ll… need to make an early start tomorrow, if we’re to leave with _Artemis_.”

He had looked up sharply from the desk, studying me intently. After a long moment, he nodded, though, dropping his head so that his hair fell forward.  

There was no need to discuss it further. _We simply couldn’t give up on one lost child chasing the faintest possible ghost of another_.

Jamie had stood, then, pulling on his coat. There would be final preparations to be made.

He had turned suddenly at the door, though, and our eyes met fully. His burned. With pain, but also with a kind of spark.  

**“We _shall_ know the truth of her someday. I swear it to ye, Claire.” and was gone. **

* * *

 

 **I stared, glazedly, across the passing countryside.** Mile upon mile of frosty pasture and fallow field. The light coating of snow clung to shrubs and bracken, making the desolate expanse into a delicate lacework. A volley of crows dived over a low hill, stark white against the dark of the wood beyond it. I blinked.

_And then he was there. A dark outline on the crest of the hill. Waiting for me._

Somehow, I wasn’t at all surprised. Nor had I any doubt.

I was out of the carriage and racing across the snowy meadow. The tall grasses and brush snagged my skirts. The icy wind whipped hard across my face and through the thin fabric of my gown. Jamie was calling after me, barking urgently in the direction of the driver. None of it mattered. I didn’t turn or slow my pace. All of my being was fixed upon the man on the hill.

He had seen me coming, of course. As I began the final ascent, I saw him turn, vanishing from sight.

“No you— _bl—bloody_ don’t,” I gasped, spurring my feet onward to climb still faster. I could hear Jamie behind me, gaining on me, but I still reached the summit far ahead of him. At the top I halted, heaving.

Raymond was standing in the clearing, just ten feet away. The bulbous black eyes met mine with no artifice or demur. He knew why I was here. He knew the question burning in me.

And the answer was _Yes_.

He went down easily, not resisting. It was like beating a child, small as he was. But I didn’t stop. My rage poured out of me in a torrent of fists, and I hit him hard again and again, and again, the skin of my knuckles flaying open, bent on tearing him apart even if it tore _me_ apart in the doing. 

I was lifted bodily off the ground, dragged backward from the prone form. I fought Jamie with all my might, kicking, clawing, and elbowing madly. But my eyes never left Raymond.

“Why?” I screamed at him over Jamie’s shoulder, “ _WHY_?” I shrieked with an excruciating crack.

He had risen. Blood flowed copiously from nose and brow.

“Because I believed I had the power to do so.” his voice was calm, quiet. Matter of fact. “Because you knew the child to be dead and consequently would not miss her—”

A bestial sound issued from my throat and I lunged. Jamie barely caught me this time, but got an arm around my middle from behind. I scratched the exposed flesh of his forearm, hard, but he didn’t loose his hold.

Raymond raised an apologetic hand, “—would not _come looking for her,_ I should say.” He casually wiped his bloodied brow with his sleeve. “But  _surtout_ , because I knew she would be like you, _Madonna_.”

“Don’t you _FUCKING_  call me—”

“— _How_?” Jamie cut me off sharply. With effort, he pinned my arms against my sides to better restrain me. “How would she be like Claire?” he demanded.  

Raymond shrugged. “A traveller, _bien sûr_.”

I hadn’t even noticed the standing stones that rose behind him. I’d assumed the screaming was mine. Now it bore into my ears and overwhelmed my senses.  

Jamie’s tone was harsh, commanding, “Where is she?”

He waved toward the stones. “She left. Well, not _here_ , precisely, but—” 

“Through the—to another—?” Jamie stammered.  

“I tried very hard to prevent her, but—she was angry.” Raymond’s eyes were full of sadness. “She would tell me nothing. I know not where or when she will have gone. I’m afraid… she is lost to me.”

Jamie still had me in a tight hold, but I was no longer struggling. I could hear his breath, coming hard through his nose as his mind raced. “Ye can— _find_ people, though? Surely ye can get to her proper time by—thinking—by putting her to mind? That is—” He struggled vainly for the right words, craning down at me urgently for corroboration.  

Raymond, however, took his meaning. “Most people, yes. But not her. She is… special. Abilities I have never before seen.” He looked at the pair of us, sizing us up. “She is _most_ _powerful_ , your daughter. The unfortunate price of which being that she is quite invisible through the stones.”

Jamie, however, was not accepting this. “If you're telling me that ye willnae try to find—”

“ _Believe me_ , my lord. _I have not stopped trying_.” And for the first time, there was something like anger in the tiny man’s voice.

Jamie inhaled as if to speak again, but I cut him off. I wasn’t yet done with Raymond.

“ _You_.” I leveled him with my gaze. I spoke each word slowly through gritted teeth. Forced him to acknowledge each one.

“You—had—the power—to save her. _And you kept her for yourself_.” I was shaking with smoldering rage. “You were my _friend_. I trusted you. You saved  _me_. And yet you chose to let me suffer the agony of her death and of  _burying her._ ”

I gulped air, my voice escalating with grief and anger. “ _My first child_. My daughter. Without her father ever even getting to see or _hold her_ , or—" Jamie’s arms tightened hard around me, not in restraint this time. I gripped him back, just as hard.

I wanted to scream it in his face. Wanted to wrap it around his neck and suffocate him with its inexorable pitch and volume. But could manage only a low, murderous snarl. “You could have saved her… _for me._ ”

He had the wisdom to not meet my eye. “A supremely selfish act, my lady. I do not deny it.” He paused. “If it is any comfort, she _has_ been cared for…I have loved her as my own.”

Jamie cursed darkly in Gaelic, his hot breath rippling the hairs at my nape. I could only whisper, “Damn you. _DAMN. YOU_.”

The wind whipped sharply over the crest of the hill. The sky was leaden as the cloudy twilight fell still more deeply.

Raymond broke the silence. He came toward us, stopping only a pace away. Even still clasped in Jamie’s arms, I could have reached him, easily. I could have grabbed Jamie’s knife and _slit his throat where he stood._ But I didn’t move. Nor did Jamie.

Raymond’s voice was very soft. “One…might forgive the Comte for his error in mistaking her in the street. She is— _quite_ remarkably like you, my dear.” Before I could recoil, he placed a rough palm on my cheek and fixed me with a look of such tenderness, such love and such pain, that the wracking sob escaped my throat before I could stop it.  

“Except—the eyes.” He looked up at Jamie’s face, now, then nodded with a small smile. “ _Oui. Sans aucun doute_.”

He stepped back just as suddenly as he’d approached. “I do not expect forgiveness, myself, and I cannot say I regret my decisions.” He met my eyes again. “But I _am_ — _truly sorry, Madonna_.”

And without another word, he crossed the clearing and vanished through the screaming stones.

* * *

 

**Jamie didn’t know how long he’d been staring at the spot where the frog had been.**

He’d seen the great stones at work once before. When he’d marched Claire and bade her go back to Frank. The first time. He’d seen her begin to go. But this time he thought he’d heard–

 _Oh Jesus. Oh Christ. Dear, Holy God_. He fell on hands and knees and retched.

To think of Claire going through such torment three times, twice for his sake. And to think of the lass…

Then came a wail. Not from the stones. A sound such as he’d never heard before. And it cut him like a knife. 

He staggered down the snowy hill toward it. No, he _had_ heard such a noise, long ago. It was the sound his own heart had made on the eve of Culloden when he knew that she and the bairn—Brianna—were gone forever.

 _The sound of utter despair_.

She was kneeling in a copse of small trees several hundred yards from the base of the hill. The screams ripping from her were visceral, animal. It tore his own heart to hear them coming from her. He called her name as he drew near, but she seemed hardly to hear him. She was folded in upon herself. Her arms pulled in tight to her chest; the fingers curled aimlessly under, like a hawk in flight.

The sound of the last, gut-wrenching scream died as he crossed the last few yards to her. Her whole body seemed to squeeze out like a sponge as she continued to descend into the exhale, her face red as blood, unable or unwilling to draw the next breath.

He threw himself to the ground before her, grabbing her shoulders. “Breathe, Claire,” he begged, through his tears. “Please, love, ye  _must_ breathe, come now.”

She did, at last, gasping, torturously. But it did not calm her. “She lived, she lived…she lived…” she choked out, over, and over between the wracking breaths. “I held her…I held her… the sweet— _sweet little face_ ….“ Her shaking hands were cupped now, and she was staring wildly down at them. "I couldn’t tell that she— _I should’ve been able to_ —”

“NO, Claire!” He shook her, hard. “NO. She _died_. Lives, yes, but she didnae  _survive_. She _did_ die, you saw her. He just—” he couldn’t suppress a deep, convulsive shudder “—brought her back. It’s different. You couldnae have known. God, no one could. You are _no’ to blame_.” He shook her again, teeth gritted with the intensity “There’s _nothing ye could have done_. Nothing, Claire, do ye hear me?”

She still hadn’t shed tears, but she pushed back hard against him with her palms, head hanging down between her arms as if she were trying to push him up an incline. She lolled her head slowly back and forth between them, trying to speak, but failing.

He still had her by the shoulders, but he spoke softly, now. “I dinna understand it at all. And the thought of the kinds of powers that brought it about have me scairt to death and shaking to my boots.” He took her face in both hands. “But to think, she is _alive_ , Claire. _Alive_. Our—” the tears choked him, and he tilted his head back, blinking hard at the sky, “— _our first wee lass_ …by the grace of God... _alive_ …”

“Faith,” Claire said suddenly, as though it were just occurring to her. “ _Faith_.”  She looked stunned by the word. It was the first time he’d heard her speak it in half a lifetime. He wondered if she’d spoken it since.

Then her tears did come. Bitter, soul-deep tears. Spilling hot over his thumbs onto her cheeks. He leaned his forehead against hers, speaking low and haltingly through his own weeping. “She’ll no’ have been mistreated, _a nighean_. She was safe, at least.”

“With _him_ ….”Her voice was high and strained, as though each word burned her throat in the speaking. “She grew up not—not knowing we— _loved_ her—that we _w_ - _wanted_ her—that we would’ve d-done  _anything_ to….that we still…that we want—”

He opened his mouth to soothe and reassure, to allay her fears. But closed it again. For he knew the truth of them. _He knew._

The frog’s voice drifted back into his ear. _I have loved her as my own_.

 _Christ_ , have I not endured a _lifetime_ already of suffering other men to love  _my_ children?

He didn’t remember standing or drawing his sword, but he was hacking wildly at the trees, bark and leaves flying madly around him in his fury as he screamed, pouring all his rage into the sound as though charging enemies on the battlefield. 

When the red haze lifted, he was on his knees. Hands empty, limp on his thighs, palms upturned. Supplication. Surrender.  

 _God, he knew_. Never being able to hold them close to his heart. Comfort them, kiss them. Tell them he loved them. Or to always fear being seen or overheard. Not being able to see them grow up. Or to never see them at all, not once. Just longing. And wondering. And breaking apart _day after day_ and _year after year_ with the aching of it in your soul. Of knowing that while they might know safety, they’ll never know _you_. Or you _them_. And someone else will. 

He allowed the desolation to overtake him, then. He shook and wept with the sorrow of so many empty years. He hung his head and stormed for this child as he had stormed for her twenty-two years ago. Despairing. Alone.   

And then Claire was holding him. Her sobs were as desolate, her shaking as violent as his own. _But she held him_ , intensity radiating from her fingertips through his scalp, his shoulders. Gripping him, sheltering him. Staking him to solid ground. He clung to her, there on the frozen ground, letting her hold him together. And he, her.  

They murmured it to one another, over and over. 

_Faith…_

_Faith…_

A name. A child. 

_Faith…._

_Faith…_

A command. A call to a strength neither of them possessed alone. 

Jamie’s heart ached with his prayer. A prayer for a tall, dark-haired lass with his eyes. Somewhere, far away, utterly unreachable. 

Lord. Please… _please Lord_. _That she might be safe._

* * *

 

_November, 2129  
London_

**I tapped the glowing panel by the sleek door and waited.** The outer wall of the corridor was made entirely of glass, showing the city sprawled out far beneath, just barely tinged with the rays of dawn. It’d come a long way since the days of Londinium, though it had been a respectably modern city in its own right, at the time. From up so high, the city was now like a great beehive, Network units whizzing in every direction, around, and up, and down. Frantic activity, but everything in its place.

The door slid open with a hiss, and I turned quickly back toward it. 

It had been 3 years, but the kind grey eyes were the same. His sandy blonde hair was tousled, and his eyes were groggy with sleep. _Of course you woke him_ , I thought, cursing myself for not having the patience to wait a few more hours.  

At sight of me, though, the sleepy eyes widened. He gave a great “ _Ha_!” of surprise and delight, and clapped me into an exuberant hug that lifted me right off my feet.

“Ohhh God, its _so_ _good_ to see you again!” He squeezed tight, then held me away from him, taking in my appearance. He swore, and raised a hand to the trail of dried blood that must have still streaked the side of my face. “Are you alright? You’re hurt? What’s happened?”

“No, I’m fine, really I…Oliver, I…”

All at once, the weariness of the last day pressed down on me, smothering me on all sides. My eyes lost focus, and my hearing. It had taken less than two hours to make my way to the tunnels beneath the graveyard and then by Network to London. But it seemed a lifetime.

It must have showed on my face. Without speaking, he pulled me close against him. I clasped him back, grateful for the touch, breathing heavily in (sandalwood, still) and out against his thin cotton shirt. _God, I’ve missed you_ , I wanted to say.

We stood for a long time, swaying in the golden morning light.

“Can I stay, Ollie?” I murmured, somewhat nervously, into his shoulder “—a short while—only until I can—”

**“ _Of course,_ ” he said with feeling, voice cracking slightly as he brought a hand up to my hair, holding me securely against him. "Stay. As long as you like, Fae.”**

* * *


	4. Fae

_November, 1766  
Paris_

**It was a trinket, really, not a book, but the half-blind Roma bookseller had sung its praises as avidly as if it were among the greatest works of literature**. Perfect to lay at a grave, he assured me, or to hang over one’s bedframe to inspire good works. _In_ bed? I could just imagine Oliver cracking this joke, and I struggled desperately to maintain my expression of stoic piety.  

I politely held the thing up for closer inspection. It was no more than a cheap wooden frame holding a tiny canvas reprising the same verse of scripture in French, Latin, and Greek. The letters were done in garish colors and galloping calligraphy, with ugly little cherubs flying amongst them.

_La foi, l'espérance, la charité_  
Fides, Spes et Caritas  
Πίστις, Ἐλπίς καὶ Ἀγάπη.

* * *

_**It was one of my earliest memories—learning my Greek alphabet in the library of Alexandria**. I remember the great halls flooded with sunlight; the smaller ones, candlelit, filled with endless miles of knowledge, just waiting to be unrolled. _

_I don’t know what age I was, exactly—three? four? The places and years blurred together in memory. But I know I was small; small enough that Raymond still seemed a giant to me._

_I remember him, hunched over his worktable, manuscripts and scrolls strewn everywhere. He was busy, deep into his research, but I must have put up a racket, for he pulled me onto his lap and began reading to me. I didn’t understand the words one bit, but I loved the sound of his voice. It rolled across the strange syllables with fluid ease, entrancing me utterly._

_He set me to work under the table with a charcoal stick, copying the letters of the simple word he had drawn out for me. My fingers were clumsy, imprecise, but determined._

π…ί…σ…τ…ς

_“_ Mais regarde, c’est parfait, ça! _” He had said, lifting both me and my masterpiece onto his lap some time later. “Perfect! Well done,_ mon oisillon _, well done!” He’d planted a kiss in my hair. “Soon you will be able to help Raymond with writing the big scrolls, eh?”_

_I had beamed up at him, my own pride doubled in the knowledge of his._

_To me he was always “Raymond.” But that word meant_ father _to me._

* * *

**“You want buy, _mademoiselle_? I make you good price!”**

I looked up, startled. I must have been fingering the thing for some time

I made a small demur to the proprietor, setting the frame back on the cluttered cart. I was definitely not in the market for such an item, being neither a mourner nor a congregant. But I couldn’t help but smile as I ran my fingers along the final line once more.

Πίστις— _pistis_. My first Greek word.  

I made my way through the market, dodging the swarm of fishsellers, beggars, and urchins that crowded the filthy streets. I had lived quite happily under far more primitive conditions; however, my recent stint in 2100s America had left me more than usually sensitive to the smells of decay and unwashed masses that were pervasive here and now. The whole place was one continuous reek.

_But even so_ , I thought, dodging to keep from tripping over the walking stick of a glowering man in a dove-grey coat, this was after all _my_ time and _my_ place. We’d barely stayed put for two or three years at a time my entire life. Consequently, it was hard to really call anyplace _home_. But _here_ , twenty-two years ago, was where the fates had seen fit to dump me and to put me in the path of Raymond. That had to count for _something_ by way of affection and loyalty to a place, I supposed.  

But, lord, there were days when I longed once more for the simple conveniences of Ollie’s time, to say _nothing_ of the wonders of just three or four centuries later. It’d been at least ten years since we had ventured that far into the future but my head still spun at memory of the things we’d seen.

Having elbowed my way doggedly up through the market toward the edge closest to the cathedral, I arrived at last in front of the herbseller’s stall. She was a plump, blonde woman who made her way to _Ile de la Cité_ daily from a nearby hamlet. While I didn’t know her name, we’d struck up a friendly transactional acquaintance these last several months, and she greeted me with a smile and bob of the head.

“Lavender today, for you today, _mademoiselle_?”

I set my basket on the counter. “Yes! And celandine, if you have any.”

“ _Oui, bien sûr_. Dried only, of course,” she added, with a wave to the sky indicating the season. I nodded understanding, and she disappeared behind the curtain at the back of the stall. I could hear her clambering up into the wagon bed to rustle through her wares.

There was a small brazier burning on the countertop, and I stretched my hands toward it gratefully, cold fingers soaking up the tiny rays of warmth. A heavy iron pan set atop it, with a cluster of dandelion root roasting on one side and a small batch of chestnuts on the other. The scent of the roasting nuts in the biting November air was mouthwatering. 

Apparently I was not the only one that noticed, for I become suddenly aware of a chubby little hand emerging from the depths beneath the counter, inching toward the contents of pan.  

Before I could cry out a warning, the owner of the hand (a stocky little boy of about six) missed his tasty target, fingers landing instead directly on the hot metal. He shrieked, recoiling so quickly that he knocked the handle and catapulted the contents over his head. The sizzling pan itself narrowly missed clobbering him in the face, and the brazier came dangerously close to tipping over and spilling its blazing coals everywhere. 

In a moment, the herbseller—apparently the thief’s mother—had him by the wrist and was screeching ferociously into his face.  

“ _Nom de Christ_ , Tomas, you little savage! What were you _thinking_?” She thudded hard to her knees before him, the better to glare him in the eye. “How many times have I told you, you must never touch the pan or go near the brazier. You could have burnt down the entire stall or seriously hurt yourself or—”

Poor little Tomas. He really didn’t need his mother’s scolding. His shame and fear had been immediate, and tears were already coursing down his face.

I felt the most visceral twinge of irrational guilt, the same sense of shame I always felt when I remembered the scene.

* * *

 

_**I’d been six, too, just like Tomas.** I had been so excited at the sight of the standing stones—Göbekli Tepe, it must have been—that I ran ahead of Raymond toward them. I’d always liked the way they hummed in my ear, and I was pretending that I was a bee, humming along on the way to my big stone hive. I got within an inch or two of the biggest stone before he jerked me back, so abruptly that I fell hard onto my backside._

_I can still recall the exact intonation of his voice; the way his eyes went wild as he bellowed at me._

_“_ NEVER _are you to touch the stones. Do you hear me, Fae?_ Jamais _,_ JAMAIS _. They are_ VERY _dangerous.”_

_I had begun crying almost instantly from the shock of the fall and from alarm at his reaction, but couldn’t resist mounting a small defense. “B-but_ you _touch them, Raymond, when you carry me through…why can’t I?” He spluttered, clearly not having a ready answer. I pressed my good luck. “When I am grown up will I be able to touch them by myself?”_

_He had stared at me for a long time before replying._

_“No.” he said, quietly, slowly. “No you won’t.”_

_Then, loudly and urgently once more, he grabbed my shoulders, hard. “You_ mustn’t _touch them. EVER. Do you hear me? You could be killed if you do, do you understand?”_

_I was sobbing in good earnest now, but squeaked out a hysterical “Y-y-yes!”_

_He’d stared me down for another long moment. Then, with a small sound, he had softened and knelt to gather me against him. I’d thrown my arms around his neck, weeping madly. “I’m very, very sorry to frighten you,_ cherie _.” He murmured, stroking my tangle of black hair. “I was frightened, too—I did not want to lose you. The stones are very dangerous for you, and I was afraid you would be…hurt. Do you understand this?”_

_I nodded thickly against his shoulder. He pulled me away from him and put a finger under my chin so that I was forced to meet his eye._

_“You must promise me, Fae.” He was speaking softly now, but still with a burning intensity. “Promise me that you will_ never _touch the stones—_ any stones _, no matter what. That you’ll always wait for Raymond to help you through.”_

_“I promise.” I had said, shaking my head emphatically. “_ Jamais _. I won’t even_ look _at them!” I’d squeezed my eyes impossibly tight in demonstration._

_He had laughed and kissed the tears from my cheeks. “_ Je t’aime tellement, mon petit oisillon. _”_

_I’d truly fallen to pieces, then, overwhelmed by the quick succession between transgression, scolding, and the utter, warm forgiveness of his embrace._

* * *

 

**I smiled to see little Tomas clasped in just the same kind of embrace, anger and exasperation melted away in relief and love**. I felt a tender pang thinking of Raymond. _I must remember to give him a kiss with his dinner tonight_ , I thought.

“My apologies, _mademoiselle_ ,” said the herbseller as she rose, her mood having shifted to embarrassment. She busied herself with the herbs that had fallen to the ground in her hurry, muttering “ _little terror, can’t turn my back for a moment_ —“ under her breath.

I threw Tomas a mischievous smile as I paid for the herbs. “Once when I was little I climbed up onto a kitchen shelf to get a taste of molasses, and ended up spilling the whole cask directly onto the cat. And THEN the cat ran and sat in the lap of a great lady who was visiting for dinner.”

Little Tomas giggled. His mother gave a kind of grimace, clearly not appreciative of the shelf-climbing ideas I might be giving her impetuous son.

I amended my tone to one of gentle reproach, not wanting to lose favor with the best herbseller in town. “Be sure to mind your _maman_ , Tomas. She’s just making sure you grow up big and strong with _all_ your fingers intact.”

A shout erupted from up the street. I turned, and saw an old man—a beggar, by his clothes—fall, clutching his arm. 

With a parting smile and “ _à bientôt_ ” for them both, I hurried up the street to the fallen man.  

_“Old”_ was a relative term, I had to remind myself. He couldn’t have been more than 45 or 50, but would have easily looked 80 in Ollie’s time, bent and wizened as he was. He had not one tooth, and his eyes were rheumy. More urgently at the moment, though, he had a gash running down his inner forearm. Not too deep, but bleeding heavily, and easily large enough to become infected.  

“ _Monsieur_ ,” I said, kneeling before him and placing a coin into his cup, “will you allow me to bandage your arm for you?”

He lowered his eyes respectfully, nodding assent and thanks. I took out my small pouch of essentials, extricating a bandage and some simple salve, and set to work.

“You are very kind, _madame_.”

“ _Mademoiselle_ ,” I corrected gently, cleaning the wound as best I could. “How did you come to get this, Monsieur, erm…?”

He was taken aback by being asked his name, but clearly pleased at the cordiality. “Renard, _mademoiselle_.” He said, with a small recumbent bow. “A rebuke from a passing lord. He did not wish to give alms and struck me a blow with his walking stick to emphasize his refusal.” 

“The _beast_ ,” I said, with a dark glare into the street at the long-gone perpetrator.

He shrugged, wincing as I worked the salve into the gash, “Such is life, _mademoiselle_.”  

I wrapped the bandage, securing it with a knot. “ _Et voilà._ Take care to keep it covered until it scabs over.” I squeezed his hand and placed another coin in his cup. “Best wishes to you, Monsieur Renard.”

“I will, _mademoiselle_.” He grinned, toothlessly, meeting my eyes directly for the first time. “I truly thank you most kindly for your–”

His mouth gaped open and closed like a fish, and his eyes, now bulging, completed the likeness entirely. With a speed that frankly astounded me, he scuttled backward to gain his feet, upending a nearby crate in the process. He was muttering and making the sign of the cross. He hastily made a stiff bow, stammering a rapid and barely intelligible, “ _my-thanks-to-you-good-day_ ” before disappearing into the crowd.

I stared after him, disbelieving. That made the fourth time since arriving in Paris six months ago.

I was used to attracting stares, true. But that was only by dint of my contrast to Raymond. Anyone with eyes could tell that we were not _biologically_ related. I had matched his height by the time I was eight, and at my adult size of 5’ 8,’’ I positively towered over him. In every time and place, our introductions went more or less the same: _“May I present my daughter, Fae.”…Incredulous chuckle. “Daughter?”… Knowing smile. Conceding gesture. “Adoptive daughter.”_ In several settings, I’d been given the nickname the Stork, a comically fitting traveling companion for a Frog. 

However in Paris, _now_ , I _personally_ seemed to have something about me that spooked people. Only the older ones, though, like Renard. We’d spent the last three years in the 1760s, traveling all over France, but only in Paris had I experienced this. _Odd lot, my fellow townsfolk_ , I thought.

“Eh, _mademoiselle_ , you’ll tend to me next, _hein_?” It was one of the younger beggars who had sat near Renard. He made a lewd gesture, making it abundantly clear what part of his anatomy he wanted tended. _Odd AND disgusting_.

I glared at him and felt the deep, familiar shuddering stir ominously within me. _None of that_. I turned my back and walked on my way, silently urging myself to calm. It would keep me safe in a pinch, true, but I wasn’t at all interested in making a public exhibition here in the market.

I made my way throughout the city over the course of the day completing my various errands. My basket was growing heavy with the wares, and I ducked my chin more deeply into the woolen muffler as I trundled back toward the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. The sun had set, and the wind had a distinct chill to it.

I thought back again to Alexandria and smiled fondly in anticipation as I walked through the door to our temporary lodging.

“Raymond, are you back? I got the celand–”

With no warning, someone grabbed me around the throat from behind. The clay jar fell from my hand and smashed on the ground underfoot. I tried to shout but I was having trouble even breathing, so tight was my attacker’s grip. My eyes darted frantically around the room. Raymond wasn’t here.

A clammy palm pressed clumsily against my face, and with a shock, I felt the familiar rush ignite between us. His bright azure mixed and swirled in front of my eyes, mingling with my own purplish blue. _So he–whoever he was–was like us, then_ , I thought abstractedly, as if it mattered now when I was about to strangle to death. 

The low, cold voice snarled into my ear with a triumphant whisper.

“So it _is_ you, woman. It’s been a long time, filthy _salope_.” 

I lunged to the side with all my might, hoping to loose his hold long enough to allow me to get to the door. Instead, he caught my hair in midair, and threw me headfirst toward the stone floor.

**In the second before I hit the floor, I heard Raymond call my name.**


	5. Oisillon

**When I came to, I thought I’d been paralyzed.** My arms felt impossibly heavy by my sides. The side of my head throbbed excruciatingly. I could feel the blood oozing from a wound above my ear, and my vision was blurry through my slitted lids. But no, I could move my fingers, my toes.  

I could hear voices above me. My attacker and —my heart leapt— _Raymond_. Thank _God_ the man hadn’t killed him. He was standing over me. Guarding me. 

I froze. They were speaking. Heatedly, but with an ease that told me that _they knew each other_. Not friends, certainly, but they’d met before.

Curiosity overruled everything else, even my wounded head. I could heal it myself later. I lay still, listening. 

“You have your answers, now leave us.”

“My _answers_?” the cold-voiced man scoffed. “Encountering you was a happy accident. I came here tonight for _her_.”

“You’ll not lay another hand on her.” I’d never heard that low, steely tone from Raymond. A warrior’s voice. I shivered. 

“I have come here for _la dame blanche_ , and I will not leave without her.”

“ _La dame_ …?”

The sound of a blade being drawn.

“It is _not_ her!” Raymond bellowed.   
  
“Get out of my way—”

Something whistled through the air and Raymond gave a sharp cry of pain that transitioned almost at once into words, “NOT _la dame blanche_ —it is her _daughter_ , damn you! _Their_ daughter.”

_Jesus._

I thought my heart would beat out of my chest and I could barely hear their voices over the sound of my own breathing.  

“But I felt her kindle at my touch… I’ve SEEN her with my own eyes.” The man’s voice was still cold, vicious, but now with a hint of doubt.

“Have you?” Raymond was still standing protectively between me and the man, but I felt him take a small step toward my feet, making room. “Madame Fraser was nearly thirty years of age when you knew her. Does this look like a woman approaching fifty?”

Booted steps toward me. “But I myself am able to–”

“And did you notice her eyes before you _knocked her senseless_? Blue, not gold. _His_. Are you able to change your eye color as well?” spat Raymond.

A long pause. “ _Daughter_ …” it was no more than a murmur. “Her age?”

“Twenty-two years.” Then, “Yes… _that_ child. _Faith_.” I was jarred to hear this last word spoken in English.

“You forget…I saw the woman in June in the star chamber, and there were witnesses in the _Bois de Boulogne._ And Mélisande heard … _That_ child died,”  he said, with decision

Raymond’s voice was quiet but tinged with something strange. Amusement? Surely not… _pleasure_? “Could you not sense it? The strangeness of her aura when you touched her?”

Silence.

“You did it, then?”

“Yes… I did it.” 

_Jesus Christ._ It was __pride_. _

A humorless laugh. “ _Merde_ …. And _I_ was the one the king declared a sorcerer.” He was close, squatting down beside me. Examining me? I clenched my muscles tight, trying not to shake. 

“Did they know? Fraser and the woman?” I could hear his breath startlingly close to my throbbing ear.

“They knew nothing but that she was stillborn. They still do not know.”

_Jesus…Bleeding… Christ._

“They live? Where—”

“That is beyond what I am able to tell you.” Raymond’s tone made it clear he was done with this exchange. “Leave this place. _Now_ ”

A low chuckle. “She is not _la dame blanche_ … but a daughter will suit my purposes, just the same.” A whish of silks as the man stood, fast, and turned.

Seizing my opportunity, I flung my eyes wide and kicked him hard behind the knees. He choked and buckled. I bolted upright, grabbed a stone bottle from the table and hit him hard on the back of the head. He dropped like a rag doll.

Swaying dizzily, blood still seeping down the side of my face, I looked up. Slowly.

Never in twenty-two years had I seen such a look on Raymond’s face. Any trace of that sick note of pride had vanished. This was shock. Overlaid with shame.

Most likely the expression I turned on him was equally foreign.

_Revulsion_.  

“Tell me everything. Now.”

* * *

**_“Raymond, why don’t I have a_ maman _?”_**

_“A_ maman _?” He went on unhindered with the tincture he was preparing. “You have_ Raymond _,” he said, laughing at the almost-rhyme, “what do you need a_ maman _for?”_

_“All of the children in the village have their_ mamans _. And I don’t.” I pouted._

_“Ah…I see.” He kept grinding and mixing, back turned._

__“When will I get one?”_ _

_After a while, he turned to face me._ _“You_ did _have a mother,_ cherie _. And a father.”_

_“I did?” I exclaimed, delighted. “Where are they?”_

_He considered me for a moment. Then sat down in front of me on the ground and cupped both of his hands around mine to form a dome._

_“_ Once _,” he said, “there was a little hatchling—_ un oisillon _. She was still in her egg but ready to be hatched and come out into the sunshine.”_

_He bounced our joined hands meaningfully, and I grinned, catching on. I wiggled my fingers, poking out from between his in imitation of a beak through the cracking shell._

_“At_ long last _,” Raymond intoned dramatically, “the little hatchling was free, and chirped with joy.” He let his palms fall away and I obliged, chirping with great enthusiasm._

_“But_ alas _, when she looked around, the mother bird and father bird were gone.“_

_“Gone?”_

_“_ Oui, cherie _. Gone. _The little_ oisillon _was all alone._ But _then,” He leaped his hands in demonstration “ _a_ toad _hopped over and saw her. And he decided to care for her so she wouldn’t be all alone.” He gave a deep_ rrrribbit _, and I giggled._

_“So you see, y_ ou _are the petit oisillon, and_ I _am the toad. And since since your maman and papa will not come back, I will take care of you just like they would.”_

_“You will?”_

_“_ Oui _, little love. Always.”_

* * *

**We had barely moved. We still stood, facing one another from across the room.**

He’d told me what he knew. What he guessed. I’d spoken mechanically. Pushed for detail in places. But mostly just stood rigid, detached, allowing the revelations to wash over me.  And trying desperately— _desperately_ —not to lose myself to what was welling up within me.

My voice scratched painfully. “My… _the Frasers._ Did they… _want me_?”

He sighed, black eyes full of pain. “Yes… yes, they wanted you. You were their firstborn…I did not see your father at the time, but I know the…the grief nearly killed her… _Claire_.”

He paused, looking down at his hands. He spoke so quietly now that I could barely hear him. “Yes…they wanted you very much indeed.”

The lump that had been blocking my throat was ready to burst. I blinked back tears. But it was _fire_ that I felt rising.

“So….you stole me away from parents that wanted me _very much indeed_ —”

“—you were _dead_ , Fae.”

“—and then allowed me to believe my entire life that I was a bastard my whore mother couldn’t be bothered with?” 

“I _never_ said—”

“No, but you let me suppose!” I was shouting now. “A newborn, abandoned in Paris in _this time_? _Jesus Christ_ , what else was I to think, Raymond?”

I ran my hand backward through my hair. “God, but I wasn’t even abandoned, was I? You just let them think me dead and then took me off to be your little _experiment_ for twenty years.” I put all my venom into the word, flinging it at him.

Raymond was now blazing too. “You _KNOW_ that isn’t…. _how_ can you even… you _know_ what you mean to me, Fae.”  

We glared at each other, seething.

Making up my mind in an instant, I stepped over the unconscious man and grabbed up my cloak where it had fallen to the floor.

Raymond spoke sharply. “Where are you going? 

I began shoving my few belongings into a satchel.

“Fae, stop, speak to me.”

I snatched up the small, protective stone box containing my small cache of gemstones. Seeing this, his eyes went wide “Fae, you mustn’t…you can’t be thinking of going through on your own… You _can’t_.”

I laughed darkly, “Oh… _can’t_ I?”

Even amid the pulsing anger, I felt my heart sink to see the tiniest flicker of confirmation in his eyes.  _Damn you, Oliver. You were right._ I resumed my hasty packing. 

“Where will you go? _Please_ , speak to me.” He followed me around the room, vainly trying to make eye contact, his voice tight with rising panic. “I-I will give you time alone, if that is what you want, I swear it, only tell me where I may find you. God, once you go through, _I won’t be able to find you!_ ”

My gut was twisting madly. The room felt unbearably hot, but I managed an icy, “Good” in response. I hitched my bag onto my shoulder and turned to the door. 

“Fae, wait—Fae, please…  _please don’t go_.” He was truly pleading now, tears flowing unchecked. I felt my own barely suppressed emotion just below the surface, and refused to meet his eyes, lest I lose my resolve. 

He grabbed both my hands, cupping his around them in a dome. “ _Mon petit oisillon, je t’en prie_ —”

I half-sobbed, half-snarled it at the top of my lungs, “I _TRUSTED_  you.” 

_And then I ignited._ As I threw my arms wide to shake him off, _the flare of red light erupted from my hands like gaslit flames_.

Raymond cried out in pain and jumped back, astonishment completely obliterating his features. He stared down at his own palms, now deep red, raw, and tinged with small lines of black. And back up at me, wide mouth dropped open. 

I was shaking convulsively. I hadn’t lost control in years….thank God I hadn’t—

But, _G_ _od_ , I was high on the mad, red adrenaline. It rushed like molten rock in my blood, blazing throughout my whole body. I stood tall in the doorway and looked him squarely in the eye before turning my back. 

**“You’re not the only one that’s kept secrets about what I am.”**


	6. To Know

**I was halfway to the graveyard, _flying_**. The horse’s head bucked wildly in front of my eyes. I felt drunk. High. Crazed. The words and phrases circling my head in a stuporous frenzy. 

_…You were dead…_

_…Stillborn…_

_…They still do not know…._

_…Yes…That child…_

_… their firstborn…_

I barely made it to the ditch. The vomit burned, my body trying to purge itself, but only succeeding with the stomach. 

I wiped my mouth and ran both hands through my hair along my scalp, trying to breathe deeply.  _Jesus Christ in heaven._

I turned back to the horse, needing to be on my way, but suddenly couldn’t move another pace.

The moon was shining brightly overhead, bright enough that I could see each of the drops that spattered into the dust between my hands. My hair hung down in curling, black curtains around my face, temporarily blocking out reality.

The spectral figures stood on the horizon of my consciousness. Barely more than shapes against the ghostly light. My heart squeezed and contracted down to a single point, as if trying to find an opening through which to reach out of my body and touch them. I imagined they were reaching out to me, as well. 

 _Them_. 

 

Laird Broch Tuarach… the Jacobite…

A _father_ with my eyes… 

The Englishwoman… the healer…. the traveller…

A _mother,_ who looked so much like me that…

_…Wanted you very much indeed…_

_No_ , I commanded the spectres. _Not here._

I got resolutely to my feet. If I gave myself over to them now, I would break apart. And for something like that… I couldn’t bear to be alone.

Gingerly, I placed Them.… _James….Claire_ ….someplace deep within me. Somewhere cool and dark. Safe.

Then allowed the spot to be covered over with the raging torrent once more.

I screamed back at the almost-vanished city, so loud that the horse started forward without my having to urge her. 

“I— _TRUSTED_  you!”

* * *

_**Our nomadic existence had been so comfortable to Raymond and me, somehow.** From library, to stones, to archaeological site in countless times and lands; to the wise man in this village to that shaman in the remote reaches; all in the quest for the particular knowledge Raymond sought. In turn, he saw to it that no matter how long we stayed in a place, I was given the chance to learn something. Swordplay; so many languages I’d lost count; philosophy; mathematics; the use and nature of herbs; older, long-forgotten arts of Raymond’s time; and in the 2100s, five years ago, it was physics at Harvard University. And for the first time, it was to be on my own. _

_“You have everything you need,_ ma belle _?” He had asked, gazing up searchingly at me on the platform of the Network station. “Enough money? I have arranged things with the landlord—you will have the apartment indefinitely.”_

_“Yes, everything, Raymond.” I had assured him, though I couldn’t keep a slight quiver from my voice. “How long do you think?”_

_“A year, maybe two. We shall have to see what awaits me in Arizona.”_

_“Are you sure you…don’t want me to come with you? I could be of help to you, with _—_ ”_

_“Ah, my sweet Fae, I do not wish to leave you.” He smiled, and raised a tender hand to my cheek. “But this expedition I must undertake alone, I think. Besides, you have a great opportunity here. There is much to learn in this time and this place _for someone as brilliant as you._ ”_

_The loudspeaker announced the unit’s imminent departure, and he hitched up his bag. “I will visit as often as I can, cherie. Here is the address where you can find me. Rest assured, I will not travel through the stones, so I_ will  _be there if ever you need me. And you likewise must _—_ ”_

 _He cut himself off, looking at me for a moment. Then he shook his head, saying only,_ “Je t’aime, mon oisillon. A bientôt. _”_

* * *

 _ **I had found myself desperately lonely in my little Boston apartment, in my classrooms, in the city**. I found friendly companions and acquaintances, of course, as I always did. Went with groups to shows and restaurants. Smiled and acted happy. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t have a single person to whom I could talk freely. About my upbringing. My experiences. My memories. Raymond had always managed to find other travelers along our way. A number of my childhood playmates had been like me. But even in the most isolated times, when it was only the two of us (most of the time, in fact), Raymond _ himself _had fulfilled that deep need within me to be known._ _But now…._

 _I was completely alone in a sea of people to whom the true_ me _was unfathomable._

_And so I typed and clicked, and found The Collective. And Oliver._

_He was one of the leaders of the Harvard chapter, though he wasn’t technically a traveller himself. The gift ran in his family, though—a well-respected English family—and he had a voracious appetite for all knowledge pertaining to such things._

_“_ Red _light?” He’d said, awed, during one of our innumerable late nights spent talking and laughing and drinking. “Seriously? Can you show me?”_

_Relenting—and a bit tipsy, mind—I had, and had almost burnt the apartment down in the process._

_“Holy bleeding shit,” he’d said breathlessly, after—initial panic transforming into that hilarity unique to the wee hours—we’d hastily opened the windows and_ _turned the rug to hide the worst of the burns under the armoire. “I’ve seen the blue of course, and I’ve read about a few who could use the green—right kinky bastards…but this is an_ entirely new level _, Fae. And your Dad doesn’t know you can? Surely he would know what to make of it, well-traveled as he is?”_

_“Raymond? No…I never told him.”_

_“Why on earth not?”_

_Because the red light came when I was angry…when I was unable to control it. Unlike the blue, healing light I could summon so softly to my hands in time of need, the red felt…_ wrong _. Like  I shouldn’t have it. It could only hurt, I thought, and recalled weeping over the body of the rabbit in the woods, feeling its soft, singed fur still warm under my young hands. I hadn’t ever brought myself to show or admit that side of me to Raymond. That_ destroyer _side._

 _But Oliver didn’t see it that way. Didn’t see_ me _that way._

_In those years in Boston, Oliver was my balm. My delight. My fiercest critic and my strongest supporter._

_My first true friend._

* * *

_**I panted heavily, swatting a cluster of gnats away from my nose.**  “Ollie!” I called up the rocky path “…as much as I…love Canada….we’ve been walking for ages and I still don’t know what we’re _doing _here!”_

 _Nearly two years had passed since I’d arrived in Boston. This morning, he’d woken me at the crack of dawn with an exuberant kiss and a maniacal smile, and had announced that we were “_ going hiking!” _Out of the country, apparently. A quick Network transfer had deposited us in Newfoundland, and Ollie had led us for_ hours _over rocks and cliffs, through forests, and up still more cliffs. The views were breathtaking, but my muscles were protesting loudly._

_“We’re almost there,”  He said over his shoulder. After a minute he looked back a second time with a grin. “Okay, fine, do you want a hint?”_

_Despite my weariness, I grinned back, adjusting the straps of my pack. “All right, then.”_

_“There’s a_ diamond _involved.” He raised his eyebrows dramatically and took off even faster up the steep incline._

 _“What the—come_ back _here—” I stomped after him, “you can’t just drop a—”_ _But then I stopped dead._

_He turned, beaming. “I can hear them, too. We must be close.”_

_I followed him, my heart and mind racing. We opened up onto a clifftop overlooking the sea. One featuring a small cluster of standing stones._

_“_ Jesus _, they’re loud,” he said, dropping his pack to the ground with a thud. I did the same, dazed. “Is the screaming even louder when you actually go through, or does it stay the same?” he asked, curiously._

_“…um…well…for me it’s more like a hum than a scream,” I murmured absently, I was too bewildered to pose any questions of my own at the moment._

_“_ Really _? What about—no,” he cut himself off, “not important right now. Here.”_

_He pressed a small, unset diamond—one of mine, from my box—into my hand, and stepped a pace back. “Well, go on, then.”_

_I stared at him. “Go on and… what?”_

_His expression was bright, expectant. “Touch them. Go through.”_

_“….the_ hell _I will!” In the back of my mind, I heard Raymond bellow, “Jamais. JAMAIS!”_

 _“Fae—”_ he said, as though I were the one being unreasonable.

 _“I’ve told you, I can’t. I literally_ am not able. _”_ _I turned back toward our packs, deeply annoyed._

_He ran ahead of me so that I was stalking toward him, rather than away. “Come on,” he wheedled, “just a quick touch. Nothing bad will happen, I promise.”_

_“How can you_ say _that?” I gestured wildly at the countless scars and burns he carried, souvenirs of years of his own failed attempts._

 _He waved this off, impatiently. “That’s_ different _. I’ve_ never _been able to pass through, Fae. I can_ hear _them, but there wasn’t ever a time when I could get through, not even when carried by my mum and dad when I was little. But you….”_

 _He emitted a small sound of awe and put his hands on my hips, “…_ you _can hear them._ You’ve _been passing through them your whole life._ You _can heal and bloody burn people with light from your_ bare hands _. And yet_ somehow _,” he waved one of his own in mock drama, “you’ll be_ killed _if you go through the stones without having him there to hold your hand? It’s_ bollocks _, Fae. Surely you know that.”_

 _I stepped back from his touch, crossing my arms in hostile defense. “You don’t know him. You’ve never even_ met _him. He wouldn’t make something like that up. Not to me.”_

 _He was pacing around now, highly agitated. “Fae, you’ve_ got _to try. Don’t you want to know for sure? Don’t you_ need  _to know?“_

_My own agitation was making me overheated and disoriented. “I do but…maybe if _—_ no I… can’t. I can’t do it.” I ended, lamely._

_He took my wrist firmly and marched me toward the stones._

_“No-no-no-no-Oliver—stop—listen to me!” I was leaning back hard so hard on my heels that he was practically dragging me, tears of panic springing suddenly to my eyes, “Ollie,_ Ollie _, please don’t make me do this—please—_ PLEASE _!”_

_He released me and I dropped like a stone. I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to make myself unmovable._

_The silence was painful. I stared at his shoes. He stood above me, breathing heavily. He was the one that broke it, at last._

_“I’m… sorry.”_

_He meant it. I could hear it in his voice. “That was…so very wrong of me. I had no right… forgive me—please?” I nodded, but didn’t speak or look at him._

_He sat beside me, and took my hand, gently this time. Connection, not command._

_We stared ahead at the stones for a long time._

_“I just _—_ ” he burst out, suddenly, “…I thought you _had _to know for sure….one way or the other… otherwise….”_

_“…I know.”_

_I did. But he said it anyway._ _“Otherwise…you’ll always have to follow him.”_

Or leave him.

_The sea crashed, boomed against the rocks far below. Seabirds called overhead, shrieking and wheeling in the slipping afternoon light._

_I turned and kissed him, then, long and deeply. And God, I meant every moment._

_But it was also cowardly. He’d pushed me to one monumental brink already that day, and I couldn’t bear to face another.  And he knew it._

* * *

_“Where will you go next?” he’d said, a few strained weeks later._

_“I…I really don’t know.”_

_I’d gotten Raymond’s message. After nearly two years in Boston, I was to meet him in the West. It was time for us to move on. To go through._

_Oliver had insisted on coming with me to the station, but we could barely look one another in the eye. For so many reasons._

_He did, though, take my hand. “I’ll…be moving back to London next year. My family has a flat that’ll be mine by then. If you’re ever back in this time… look me up? Will you?” I knew him well enough to hear the repressed longing in his voice._

_I took the paper that held the address. My throat was thick, but I managed a hoarse, “Of course I will.” He knew me well enough to hear what I was holding back, too. What I wanted to say._

_But soon we’d be on opposite sides, completely unreachable to one another._

_And the loudspeaker was calling._

* * *

**“And I _left_ him because I fucking TRUSTED YOU!”**

I was screaming (aloud?), hurtling through the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the graveyard. I didn’t even know what language the words were in, but they poured out of me as unchecked as the beams from my fingertips that scorched the walls as I ran.  

_Didn’t ever touch the stones because I TRUSTED YOU._

_Didn’t ever push for the real story of where I’d come from because I TRUSTED YOU._

_Trusted YOU, Raymond. YOU, more than Ollie, or myself, or common sense._

_Stayed with you and loved you and followed you blindly because I trusted that you wouldn’t_ ever _lie to me. That you wouldn’t_ ever _do anything to—that I was more important to you than—_

I was in the pentagram itself now, blazing. Heaving. One thundering heartbeat. Two. 

_Enough…._

_Enough._

With an emerald gripped tight in one hand, I slammed the other onto the stone in the center of the pentagram. My last tiny scrap of doubt—of _hope_ that I was somehow wrong—evaporated with a sob as I felt the familiar sensation take hold, catapulting me forward.

**Forward to the only other person in all of time that I hoped still understood me.**


	7. Ifs

_April, 2130  
London_

**“ _Fraser_? Do you know which branch?” ** George Acton’s eyes were sharp and penetrating in the dim light, though he was well past drunk.

In the months I’d been in London, we’d spent quite a few of our nights out with local members of The Collective at the penthouse lodge room. A diverse group, far more so than the Harvard one had been, in terms of age, occupation, and experience. Most of us had traveled extensively. Others, like Ollie, held by necessity a more academic interest in the topic. Our gatherings were always therefore a lively mix of theoretical expostulation and the telling of epic tales from exploits throughout history. There were fifteen of us at the table tonight; about the usual for the Greater London chapter. This was the first time, though, that Acton had joined the group in my presence.

“No, I’m afraid not.” I replied a bit tersely, though I couldn’t resist adding, “My…father was _James_ Fraser, Lord Broch Tuarach…if that _means_ anything to you?”

He didn’t answer this question. Just considered me for a moment before saying flatly, “You certainly couldn’t pass for Scotch or English with _that_ accent.” At the ripple of disapproval that followed this blunt remark, Acton (his own accent flawless and refined) looked around in cool surprise,“Does anyone _disagree_?”

I was not proud of the fact that his words stunned me into silence. I had been fluent in English for many years, but couldn’t deny that my accent when speaking it was somewhat of a hodge-podge. The result of having French as my first language, perhaps. Or being fully immersed in a new one every several years over the course of my entire life. I didn’t notice it most of the time, but of course, he was right. An over-sustained vowel here; a misplaced emphasis there. Inconsistent at best; a bit ridiculous at worst. 

Oliver saw me blush. He shoved Acton in the shoulder from across the table; not hard, but not _playfully_ , either. “And how many languages do _you_ speak?” he demanded, “English, plus ‘fancy a shag?’ in Spanish so you can get along in Ibiza?” He put an arm around me. “Fae’s fluent in French, Albanian, Greek, Korean, Latin, and Turkish, just to name a few. I’d be willing to bet that she could show you up in English, too, accent or not. So cut her a damn break, mate.”

Acton had had his pint halfway to his mouth when Ollie had jostled him, and was now mopping lager from his shirtfront and glowering at us from across the table. Oliver was giving it right back, glare for glare.

Knowing a brewing storm when I saw one, I jumped in, tone carefully light, “It _has_ been several years since I spoke English regularly, and that was in the States. And I’ve never even _been_ to Scotland, so small wonder I’ve got a lot to learn.” This was doing nothing to diffuse the tension between them, but I went on doggedly, babbling. “I did _know_ a Scot once, but that was in the 11th century. An exile. He taught me a bit of his language, though I do not even know if the words would be understood today.”

I thought I heard Acton mutter something into the dregs of his now half-empty glass. Ollie heard it too,“ _Bloody barbarians_.”

A matronly woman of 50 or 60—Catherine, I think—came to my aid with a cheery, “You _must_ plan a visit, my dear. The Scottish countryside is lovely, what’s left of it. The cities have spread out so much you have to go quite far north or several centuries back if you want to see the wild Scotland that once was.”

“Loads of moaning, though,” said the fair man sitting next to Acton, who appeared to share his friend’s dark opinion on the Scots. “Always on about independence and Scotland’s glorious past and reclaiming what they’re owed. Never _shut up_ about it, do they?”

“ _You’d_ feel entitled to moan a bit, if you’d been through what the Scots have over the centuries,” said a portly bearded man to our left, a financier by day. “My mum’s granddad traveled back through Scotland and had horrible things to tell: the British occupations—Glencoe—Culloden—”

“ _Should’ve just wiped them all out when we had the chance_.” The guileless violence in his voice made the entire table fall silent and look at Acton. He stared back, impassive, eyebrows raised in defiant challenge. “Never too late to do things right.” 

Oliver stood up. “I think you’ve had enough for tonight, _mate_ ,” he said distinctly. “Why don’t you and Wythe call it a night?” The words were innocent enough, but his tone made it clear that this was not a suggestion.

Acton stood, slowly, keeping eye contact with Ollie as he did so. He drained his glass and set it down hard. With a dark leer in my direction, he ambled leisurely to the door, his pale friend in tow.  

“ _Prick_ ,” Oliver muttered with feeling, glaring after them as he settled beside me once more. “We went to school together. Whole family’s a pretentious lot of bigots.”

“High up in the government, too,” the financier said. “ Championed all the immigrant exportations in ‘50s. Voted to separate England back from the EU and retract powers from the Scots, Welsh, and Irish. With quite the extra-special hatred for the Scots, it seems. Sorry, love,” he added, with an apologetic glance at me.

In all honesty, I’d been less disturbed by the nature of Acton’s comments than by the vehemence behind them. The way he’d glared at me. As though I were dung tracked in from the street.

Nonetheless, I shrugged diffidently, patting Oliver’s leg reassuringly under the table. “I’m only half-Scot. And I didn’t even know that until six months ago. Not out to be a martyr for the blue and white _just_ yet.”

* * *

 

**Back at the flat, I leaned against the windowsill with a sigh, watching the city lights twinkle in the night below.** I could hear Oliver singing a boisterous rendition of  _Go Home with Bonnie Jean_ in the shower and I couldn’t resist a smile at the choice, despite my far grimmer frame of mind at the moment. 

It was one of those matters that—if left unaddressed—would eat at me and build into resentment. I was already resentful enough over it, so may as well get it out in the open. I did, however, allow him the dignity of having his boxer shorts on before asking it.

“Any _particular_ reason you felt the need to spill my family drama to Acton and the whole group tonight?”

He looked up sharply from toweling his hair, but there was no surprise in his eyes. He’d been expecting this question. “Well, I sure as hell wish Acton hadn’t shown up, no matter what the circumstance, but _yes_ , there was a reason.” 

He tossed the towel aside. “Its time you bloody _talked_ about it. You’ve been skirting the topic and brooding out of windows for _months_.”

“I have _not_!” I said, indignant….but I took a few _dignified_ steps away from the window.

“You _have_. And after almost six months, its _time_.” He settled on the end of the bed. “Tonight’s the night we come up with a plan for finding them. We can do it, I know we can.” His expression was so earnest and eager, so present, that the sharpness of my anger dissolved almost at once.  

“Ollie….” I collapsed next to him onto my back, sighing up at the ceiling, “I _can’t_.”

He appeared over me. “What, make your way through the stones? _Haven’t we been through this already_?” He was smiling that sweet, wide smile that made his eyes crinkle down to slits.

“No—I mean, yes of course, but—”

“So we’ll pull an all-nighter, just like the old days.” He rested on one elbow, rubbing my hip. “You and me. We’ll open some wine and search through the digital archives and find the trail that tells us where and when your parents are.”

I mirrored him, stroking his hip in return.   _My_ s _weet Ollie_. But couldn’t meet his eye when I said it.

“I already know.”

* * *

 

_“_ **Him** _**,” I’d said, gesturing to the unconscious intruder on the stone floor, “he began to ask you where they were.** You didn’t say you didn’t know.”_

_“You are correct. I did not.”_

_“So, you know where they are?”_

_“No. I don’t”_

_I waited. Raymond knew me well, and it was obvious I was not in a mood for riddles. He began. “After the defeat of Scots, I began to fear for your mother. The retribution of the English upon Scotland was…severe. Executions. Raids. Sexual violence. Famine and starvation.”_

_He shuddered slightly before continuing._

_“It was 1747. You were three years old. Just starting to look like her, with your great curly mop. And I _—”_  he shrugged uncomfortably. “Call it…belated sentimentality—but I wished to know if she lived.” _

_I waited._

_“I went to the nearest circle. Left you in the care of friends. And, fixing myself upon thought of your mother, I touched the stones. It was quite an elegant means of verification. If she were dead, I would have been able to sense it. A temporal dead end, so to speak. But I felt no such thing. She was not dead…But neither was she in 1747._ _When I awoke, it was in the year 1949. Her own time, I assume.”_

_“Did you find her?”_

_“No… we were far from Scotland, then. And it was the first time I had been apart from you _—_ on opposite sides of the stones that is. When I could no longer feel…._c’est à dire _… I realized I needed to get back to you quickly. I did not stay to search for her._ _But it was truly enough for me—then, at least—simply to know that she lived. A greater comfort still that she did so far from the horrors facing Scotland.”_

_My heart had been sinking, and now plummeted. Horrors. “What about… James?”_

_“I think it likely that he perished in the uprising. He was a very prominent leader in Prince Charles’s cause. I very much doubt the English would have allowed him to live, even if he managed to escape being killed in battle directly. But beyond the English, he and your mother_ _were a bonded pair such as I have seldom encountered—I do not think Claire would have gone through the stones if James were still alive. Or…” he shrugged, “…perhaps she was able to take him through with her, though I did not sense the traveler’s spark in him.”_

_I was quiet. The lump in my throat was swelling by the moment. Prickles of anger starting to rise along with the grief._

_“And so….while I cannot say for certain…it_ has _been nearly twenty years… I think it very likely that at least your mother is living out the remainder of her days in her own century… the twentieth. In England or Scotland.”_

* * *

 

I’d paced the room as I recounted to Ollie this last portion of that night in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Glancing up at his expression now, I wasn’t sure if he was going to whoop with excitement or strangle me.

“ _Sweetheart_ …” he said, with barely-controlled exasperation, “if you _knew_ …why did you make such a point of making me promise not to research them ‘until you were ready’?”

I made my own exasperated sound. “Because there’s no _possible_ way this could turn out well!”

“What do you mean?” he asked, surprised, rising and coming to me. “If you know _when_ and _where_ to look for them, what could be _—_ ”

“ONE.” I said, holding up a finger to keep track. “One or both of them could be dead. One of them more than likely already is.  TWO. They could be in hiding, or have changed their names, or have _immigrated to Bhutan—_ ” 

He rolled his eyes, but I went on. 

“THREE, they might…they won’t…” I trailed off for a moment, then resumed, all the heat in my voice now vanished. “Ollie…it isn’t like they put me up for adoption. I didn’t go missing. They haven’t been looking for me, or wondering how I’m doing or where I am because _I don’t exist_.”

I sunk down on the bed again. “How in _hell_ could I expect them to believe me? Show up on their doorstep and say ‘ _Hello there, remember me? I’m your stillborn baby *back from the dead,* can I come in?_ ’ Jesus Christ, they’ll think I’m a _lunatic_ , or after— _money_ maybe, or—”

Oliver was quiet now, working his jaw in thought. He could see I had a point. But I wasn’t finished.

“And even if they _did_ —somehow—believe me… they might not…  _accept_ me. It might be too hard to process me as a daughter, you see? And I couldn’t blame them for it, really… _FOUR_.” I added, as a bitter afterthought.  

He joined me back on the bed. “So…you’ll be going back to Raymond, then?”

“Back to…? _No_.”

“I didn’t think so. So, then, unless you plan to continue walking around like a ghost for the rest of your life, you’ve _got to try_.”

“What are you going to do, _drag_ me to the stones again?” I snapped.

“No, I’m not,” he said, quietly. “But you’ve got to do it. And the dragging aside, this time its different, Fae. That day in Newfoundland, I was selfish. I needed you to go through for _me_. So you’d know that you didn’t need Raymond—so that you would _stay with me_ because I couldn’t bear to lose you. This time….” 

He squeezed my hand “…this time I’m _asking_ you to go through…knowing full well that it could take you away from me forever.” I started to protest, but he waved this away, “The four _ifs_ , I know, but there’s still the chance you’ll find them. And even knowing that, it doesn’t change my mind. You’ve _got_ to do this. And I think you know that, too.”

We both lay back on the bed, now. I wrapped my arms around his chest. Bare. Still faintly damp and steaming from the shower. Smelling of sandalwood. Him. 

“If I could travel through with you—“ he murmured into my hair, “or go it alone and find them myself for you, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“I know you would, Ollie.” I said, tracing one of his scars. 

“But you can do this, Fae. _You_.”

I kissed him, slow and deep. The kiss, too, was different than Newfoundland. Not an avoidance this time. A thank you.  

* * *

 

_May 1, 2130  
Craigh na dun, Scotland_

**A name wasn’t enough, though Raymond had never told me so.** Not surprising, given that he’d tried his best to keep me from ever attempting to travel through on my own. But The Collective’s knowledge bank was extensive, and Ollie gave me a proper education on the topic. 

Someone you knew personally and had memories of was almost always a sure bet. If you’d seen their photograph or a good likeness: possible, but far less accurate. But fixing on the mere _idea_ of a person you’d never met yourself … roulette. I could only start with the year, then.

“You’re looking _very groovy_  today” Ollie said with a grin. 

“Why,  _thank you._   _Far out_ , right?” The replica bell-bottomed blue jeans and antique peasant blouse would look casual, but not disreputable, I hoped.

I’d chosen the Craigh na dun stones over those available to us in England since they were the closest to James Fraser’s ancestral home; but, lord, I was longing for the flat expanse of Salisbury plain as we trudged up the punishing hill. 

It was amazingly hot for early May, and Ollie was panting as he spoke, “And for the _last time_ … you’re _sure_ you don’t want to do some of the searching legwork before entering a time without digitalized records or the internet?” He asked this with the same tone as if he were asking if I was _sure_ I wanted cyanide in my tea instead of sugar. 

“ _Yes_ , I’m sure.” Even if this way took longer—of _course_ it would take longer—I didn’t want my first interaction with my parents to be reading about exactly when and how they died.

“All right then, worth another shot. Oh, almost forgot,  _here_.” We were in the clearing, now. The ancient stones rose up in a circle, humming brightly in the throes of May Day. He handed me a packet containing my present. It was a flat, golden disc about a quarter inch in diameter, affixed to a fine chain that could be worn around the neck. One of The Collective’s most recent experiments.

_He’d explained the rudiments to me the previous night. “It’s just a prototype, but I_ think _this one is going to work. Cutler was the last one to try. Just press the back once you get through to the other side. And, um… maybe don’t wear it as you’re going through. The gold plate should keep it from disintegrating this time, but… just to be on the safe side.”_

_We had shed our tears last night, too. Said our goodbyes. Wondered and worried. Comforted. Held one another till dawn._

“I’m ready,” I said, though my voice shook.

He brought his forehead to mine, and his voice was husky. “I love you, Fae.”

I held him tight for as long as I could. “I love you, too.”

* * *

 

**All of my senses were now fixed on the stones.** The familiar hum grew louder with every step. Every heartbeat was a taunting reminder.  

_If they’re dead._

_If they’re hidden._

_If they don’t believe me._

_If they don’t want me._

But all that mattered for the moment was 1969.

* * *

 

**The passage was no worse than usual.** The hook, the disintegration, the indeterminable period of oblivion.  

What I _wasn’t_ prepared for was tripping over something the instant I landed and skidding hard across the ground on my hands. I groaned in pain. In addition to my skinned hands, I had landed hard on the stone box within my satchel. Bruised liver maybe?

But before I could pay much heed to my hurts, a startling smell greeted my nostrils. I pushed myself off the ground and was shocked to see that what I’d tripped over was a body laying before the stones. 

A young, very tall woman—lord, she must be almost six feet tall—of maybe nineteen or twenty, with long red hair.

**And she was on fire.**


	8. This Side of the Stones

**The fire hadn’t been burning long.** It only encircled one arm of the red-haired girl’s gown, but was starting to spread onto the bodice and lick away at the tips of her hair. Becoming suddenly aware of either the pain or the heat, the inert figure snapped awake and upward with a shriek, the  _whoosh_ of movement causing the flames to roar even more rapidly through her clothing.

Only a few yards away, I threw off my satchel and crawled quickly toward her, calling for her to lie down. She was in such a state of frenzy that she either didn’t hear or didn’t comprehend my words. Getting hold of her hip and shoulder, I managed to wrench her flat and roll her onto her side, then stomach, and back again, over and over. She was flailing, resisting my efforts in her panic; but nonetheless, I managed to clumsily roll her against the damp ground. The bodice extinguished quickly. The sleeve, however, held on stubbornly, as I was unable to get the full circumference in contact with the ground at any one time. In desperation, I whipped off my blouse and wrapped it around her arm. For a moment, it seemed the brittle, aged fabric would catch and burn, itself. But at last, all trace of fire was smothered.

Coughing on the acrid fumes of burnt hair, I managed to croak out, “You’re okay now. It’s out, _you’re okay_.” Trying to exude calm while I took stock of the damage, I asked, “What’s your name?”

The girl was sitting up now, but was shaking so hard from head to toe that she couldn’t work her jaw to form words, only making feeble gulping sounds. She was holding out her right arm stiffly away from her body at chest height, gritting her teeth in effort to move it as little as possible. As gently as I could manage, I ripped away the last, scorched remnants of the sleeve, which belonged to a cheap approximation of an 18th century gown. Seeing what lay beneath, it took all my resolve not to gasp. The length of the arm was screaming with deep scarlet. In places, the burns were so deep that the subcutaneous layers were visible, and angry blisters were already forming from shoulder to wrist. A large and very bad burn, and clearly _extremely_ painful. Her eyes were wide and streaming, and she was shivering madly, going into shock.

“You’re okay, you’re going to be _just_ _fine_ in a moment,” I cooed gently, “but I need you to lie back down, okay?” I managed to get her back onto the ground. I’d felt her spark under my hands when I’d extinguished the burn. Given our location and her conspicuous attire, there was little doubt of it. I’d certainly never have attempted to use the healing force on a conscious stranger in broad daylight, otherwise. But she _yelped_ in shock as the blue light sprung from my hands over her injured arm. Traveller she might be, but clearly _this_ was new for her; new enough to jolt her into normal speech.

“How….h-how are you… _doing_ that?” She watched, entranced, as skin and tissue began to regenerate and reknit at once under my touch.

“It’s a…skill.” I said simply, hovering my hands slowly up toward the shoulder, under the armpit, behind the elbow. “A number of travelers have it. I’m not the only one.”

Her slanted blue eyes went wide with excitement at that. “You came through the stones? Where are you from? _When_?” She herself was American, judging by her accent. 

“Here and there. Most recently from the 2100s,” I said, not wanting to get too deep into my particulars. I finished with the arm. A little pink, but with no trace of burn. “The pain? Is it—?”

“Gone!” she said, amazed, sitting up to look more closely. “ _Holy Mary,_ ” she murmured.  Then, looking me in the eye, “Thank you. Truly. For _this_ and for… putting me out. As soon as I felt the flames, I panicked. I don’t think I would have been able to… _thank you_.”

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “How did it ignite in the first place?”

She looked a little dazed as she spoke. “I don’t know, really. I touched the stones, and thought I was through, but then it… it blasted me back and I blacked out. And when I woke up…”

She glanced toward the stones and with a jolt that juddered her body visibly, she clapped her hands over her ears. “Oh, God…I can hear them again. The _screams_.” 

 I’d just been about to ask that very question. If she’d tried to pass through without the ability, that would explain the rejection. But if she _could,_ in fact, hear them…

She was shaking again, almost as hard now as she had from the burns. “I don’t want to do that again.” She was doing her best to both block the repellant sounds from her ears and hold her knees protectively to her chest. “ _God_ ,” she breathed, “I _can’t_ do that again.” She was starting to hyperventilate. Panic attack, Ollie called it. 

Without thinking, I gathered her close like a child. Like Oliver had for me, once. She was taller than me, but slender, and clung to me hard. I murmured softly to her, flitting between French and English in my absent-minded state. I didn’t want to mislead her. Maybe she _oughtn’t_ to try again. Maybe she was like Ollie, and simply _couldn’t_ , no matter how much she tried or how loud the stones screamed… But I _had_ felt the spark.

“Did you have a gemstone?” I blurted with a sudden inspiration, “When you went through?”

“A gem…” she mumbled between gasps, wiping her running nose. “N-No…? _Do I need one_?”

Relief flooded through me. A simple fix. “Not necessarily, but it helps a lot.” I rifled in my bag, found my box, and came out with a small, green peridot. “Here, take this.”

She stared at me, open-mouthed, still breathing heavily. “You just _happen_ to have a box of jewels on hand? What are you, a— _museum thief_?”

“No, I promise,” I laughed, placing the thing in her hand, “I just do this a lot. Never want to get stuck without one.” Trying to lighten her frame of mind, I added, “It’ll burn up when you pass through, so don’t get any bright ideas about pawning it.”

She looked from me to the gem in her palm and back to the stones, expression still pale and drawn. Taking her empty hand firmly, I asked softly, “Does it matter? Whatever it is made you decide to go through in the first place?”

She swallowed, and was silent. Then steeled herself. “Yes… _yes_ , it’s worth everything.”

I squeezed. “Then you’ve got to try.”

She returned the pressure, nodding thickly. 

“All right, then.” I helped her to her feet. “You should hurry, though. The opening will get narrower as the day goes on, and it won’t open again until June.”

Looking up, I was pleased to see that the hysteria had vanished, but she was now regarding me with something like suppressed mirth. I followed her gaze, and spent a moment reflecting on what _excellent_ judgment it had been not to allow my quest for 1960’s fashion authenticity to lead me to forgo proper undergarments today. My scorched blouse still lay mangled on the ground.

“I don’t have any precious jewels to offer you,” the girl said, lifting her haversack off the ground with a grin, “but if you’d like a new _shirt_ …”

“That would be worth _ten_ jewels right now!” 

“Over there in the woods, under that clump of bushes. Figured I didn’t need to attract more attention by carrying them with me to the 1700s.”

“ _Definitely_ not.” I found the small bundle, and extricated the shirt. It wasn’t too different from the one I had been wearing, apart from the color. A bright yellow. 

“Not a bad fit!” the girl said, appreciatively. “Thank goodness your jeans survived, though. Couldn’t have helped you in that department.”

We laughed, acknowledging our nearly four inches’ difference in height. Then, just as synchronously, we quieted, both sensing it was time. 

She gripped my hand and we turned to face the stones. I thought for a moment she was going to turn and run down the hill. However, she only looked at me and said, “Is what  _you_ came through for worth it?”

I swallowed before replying with a rather faint, “I hope it will be.”

She nodded. “I hope it will be for you, too.” She bent, and kissed my cheek.

As she began to walk forward, I couldn’t help calling out, “Can I ask you… are you from… _Boston_?”

She turned, laughing. “Yes! Born and raised. You?”

“No,” I said, smiling back, “but I spent some of the best years of my life there. Feels a little like meeting someone from home.”

I stayed until I was sure she was through, watching that remarkable river of red hair sailing through into the past.

* * *

**I was halfway to Inverness before I remembered.**

Swearing loudly, I dropped to my knees on the side of the road, fumbling in my satchel. I extricated the disc from its packet and hastily pressed the catch on the back. A high pitched sound shrilled forth, and I nearly dropped the thing. But I heard Ollie’s voice.

_“Fae… Fae, if you can hear me….please….speak to me… Fae….”_

He was speaking slowly. Mechanically. Painfully. I could just picture him sitting with his head in his hands, doggedly repeating the words over and over. And it had been hours.

“Ollie! Ollie, _mon cher_ , its okay, I’m here! _I’m here_.”

Even through the slightly static-clouded connection, his relief was palpable. “OHHH, love, thank God. _Thank GOD._ I’ve been sitting here imagining that the thing blew up and killed you or you were abducted by  _pirates_ or something—”

I thought about trying to lighten the mood by pointing out that this was the wrong century for pirates, but I held my tongue, hearing the genuine desolation in his voice. I spoke soothingly, contritely. “No, no, nothing like that, I just forgot to turn it on. _I’m so sorry_.”

“ _Forgot_?”

“Ran into another traveller the minute I got through. She was hurt and I stopped to help. Anyway, I’m _safe_.” I paused, not able to contain a happy little sigh. “And it’s good to hear your voice. This thing is _truly_ remarkable.”

He couldn’t keep the pride from his voice. “If I can’t travel through myself, glad I can help on the communications front. Keep me posted if any glitches crop up so I can make notes. Cutler once started picking up radio frequencies. 1940′s big band music; which was terribly odd, because he was in 1512 at the time.”  

* * *

**I started with Lallybroch.**  An abandoned estate by now; not _derelict_ , per se, but certainly not cared for. The grounds were wild and overgrown; the house, dusty and stale-smelling. There was a small graveyard up on the hill near the tower, but I couldn’t bring myself to enter it. None of the occupants of the neighboring homes seemed to know anything about what had become of the ancestral owners. Some mentioned that it had been passed down by a line of _Murrays_ for a time, but none could tell me of any living _Frasers_ associated with the property.

From there, to Edinburgh, then London. Looking for newspaper clippings, government documents, drivers’ licenses, _anything_ having to do with a James or Claire Fraser. It was a long shot, but I felt I had to start by ruling out all possibility that one or _both_ of them might have come through the stones and lived under their same names.

It wasn’t a great surprise, though, to conclude rather quickly that James Fraser had never been documented outside of the 18th century. I found a few documents pertaining to his estate from his lifetime; spent a long time gazing up at the portrait of Ellen Mackenzie Fraser in the national gallery. But no trace of him in the 1960s was to be found. More surprising and disheartening, however, was the fact that an English ‘Claire Fraser’ with connections to Scotland did not appear to exist in the 20th century, either.

After several weeks of this, I finally threw in the towel.

“Ollie, are you there?” I leaned against the wall of the telephone booth, holding the heavy receiver against my ear. It was only for show, of course. The transmitter was powered by electrical currents in the body, so it theoretically would run as long as it was in direct contact with my skin. And due to the very clever neural receptors, the incoming voice couldn’t be heard by anyone else, even if they were standing right next to you. But in this time—just on the dark side of a technology boom—sitting in a pub apparently talking to myself would have attracted considerable suspicion.

“I need you to do a search for English women named ‘Claire’ who disappeared between 1920 and 1950.”

He whooped excitedly, “Finally! Give me just a minute.”

I could hear him settling down before the screen at once, and I quickly added, “Please, _please_ be careful what you tell me. I only want enough to  _narrow_ my search…”

“ _Understood_ … searching…’Claire’…missing persons….” I waited, pencil poised over the notebook that contained my findings and photocopies.

“Okay, I’ve found three. Claire _Sewell_ , disappeared from Dorset in 1923…. Claire _Brockton_ , from Lincoln in 1939….and Claire _Randall_ … went missing while on holiday in…Inverness.”

My heart leapt. “ _Inverness_ … so near to Craigh na dun! What was the year on that one?”

“1946. There’s a whole file here from the time of the disappearance. Police reports…newspapers…”

Rapidly, I calculated between the two centuries. “So… almost exactly a year before I was born, then. _Could it be her_ , do you think?”

_Silence_.

“Ollie? _Are you still there_?”

“Yes….it’s definitely her.” His voice was faint.

My heart nearly stopped. “ _How can you tell_?”

“ _There’s a photograph_.” He swore quietly under his breath. “No question, Fae.”

Longing to see a picture of my mother brought a painful lump to my throat, but I managed to force out, “What else does it say about her?”

_Silence_.

“What is it?” I said, sharply, imagining what terrible revelation he was seeing in the archives. “Ollie, _tell me_!”

_Nothing_. I heard a crackle, a small popping sound. But nothing.  

Apparently the prototype was developing some glitches after all.

* * *

**A few more weeks passed in London, searching now for records of Claire _Randall_.** I found her birth certificate (maiden name  _Beauchamp;_ maybe I _was_ French after all!); marriage certificate from her first marriage; and her war service records. No information, however, on her current whereabouts. It was like someone had wiped her post-1946 life clean from government records.

Vainly, I tried over and over to get through to Ollie for more information, no longer caring about protecting myself from painful knowledge. I would take it all at this point, just to be able to get to her _now_. But the golden disc remained mute and lifeless against my skin, with no more than an occasional scratch of static.

* * *

_June 20, 1969  
Inverness_

**“Och, aye, I remember it, lass,” intoned a large, lilac-clad matron sipping a paper cup of tea.**  “Police all in an uproar, searchin’, and stoppin’ folk for questionin’ in the street. Drove the whole of Inverness near  _mad_ it did!”

This appeared to be developing into the same conversation I’d had dozens of times already in Inverness these past few weeks, and seemed likely to yield as little help regarding Claire Randall’s whereabouts. I listened politely and asked my normal questions, but frankly, I was bone-weary of it all. For a moment this morning upon waking, I’d considered closing the shutters and retreating back into sleep for the entire day. 

The Midsummer Festival, though, was too good an opportunity to pass up. Folk that normally remained sequestered indoors, inaccessible, would venture out today for the occasion. I was stopping nearly every person over 40 who would speak to me. I’d foregone blue jeans in favor of a neat skirt and blouse, and even put my unruly hair up in a neat chignon to maximize my apparent respectability in the eyes of those of an age to remember the late 1940s.

Lilac’s friend was decked out in a brilliant aquamarine herself, making the pair of them look not unlike a set of enormous, round Easter eggs. Aquamarine nodded, “And those years later when she came _back_ , t’was even _worse_! Near frenzied, it had the town! Inspectors and policemen crawlin’ round the hospital. And her, the poor wee thing, starved and frightened near to death while the newspapermen are flashing their cameras in her face.”

I’d seen the photograph. I’d pestered the grumpy keyholder at the local newspaper office until he’d opened the archives room for me. It had taken a few days of sifting through boxes, but at last I’d found the articles from 1948. It wasn’t the photo Oliver had seen, from the time of her disappearance. This was one taken shortly after her return. She was sitting propped up in a white hospital bed, tension evident in her clutched arms. I’d stared at it for ages. She _had_ looked like me. Dark hair framing a pale face. Beautiful. Delicate. _But so very sad._

I patted the torn square of newsprint in my pocket, taking comfort in its nearness. “And do you know where she is now, this Mrs. Randall?” I already knew the answer.

“Oh, _no_ , dear,” intoned Lilac sympathetically, “She left wi’ her husband shortly after the whole to-do. Cannae blame them for leavin’ town quick-like, as folk would _always_ have remembered it. Pointing and staring after _the fairy lady_ , ken. A shame you didnae come round a few years back: the Reverend Wakefield knew the Randalls and would certainly have known how to reach them. But he’s passed on, poor soul.”

Aquamarine brightened as if in sudden inspiration, “But what about his boy, wee Roger? He’ll have been naught but a wee laddie at the time, but the manse still sits much as it was when the Reverend was alive. I’d wager Rog might be able to find something in his Da’s effects to help ye, lass.”

My ears pricked up at that. I’d heard the Reverend Wakefield mentioned a number of times in conjunction with the Randalls, but this was the first time anyone had cared to mention he had a _living_ _son_. “Where might I find this Roger?”

“Down at Oxford, I shouldn’t wonder. Quite the scholar, he is. We’re _very proud._ ”

“But he’ll be playing at the festival today, will he not?” asked Lilac. 

“Aye, ye mebbe right, Lavinia! A _beautiful_ voice, has wee Roger.”

* * *

**He had, too, though he was far**   **from ‘wee.’** Thirty, perhaps, and quite tall with dark hair and olive skin. When he sang—voice strong and vibrant—he had the whole festival crowd of thousands utterly entranced.

> _Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,_  
>  Onward! the sailors cry;  
> Carry the lad that’s born to be King  
> Over the sea to Skye.

Apparently, though, I wasn’t the only one with an interest in the young Mr. Wakefield. I’d lingered by the stage, hoping to approach him when he completed his set. However, before I could even open my mouth to speak, a flock of shrieking girls descended on him, as rabidly as for any Beatle. By the time they’d dissipated, he’d been called back on for an encore performance that seemed likely to go on for a good while, for it was one of the longer battle songs. 

Scribbling a brief message for the stage manager to pass on, I plunked down onto a bench in a nearby tent with a mug of cold cider. Minutes ticked by in somewhat of a stupor. The air was hot and humid, and I raised the cool glass to my forehead, allowing my thoughts to wander.

The stones would be open today and tomorrow. Should I just go back to the 2100s until the next opening? A few weeks of respite with Oliver certainly was tempting. _Beyond_ tempting. And the chance to learn what else he may have discovered about Claire Randall. Or Beauchamp. Or whoever she might be now.

“ _Damn you_ , Claire Fraser,” I muttered aloud in French, thunking the glass down, “why must you be so _damn_ hard to—”

“Claire _Fraser_?”

Looking up so sharply that I felt a twinge in my neck, I saw Roger Wakefield standing at my elbow, staring down at me in apparent horror. I got quickly to my feet and extended a hand. “You’re Mr. Wakefield, yes? Thank you very much for finding me. I’m Fae, and I have—”

He cut me off with a raised hand, green eyes hooded by deeply furrowed brows. He spoke very quietly, so low I had to lean in. “There’s only a few people alive that would know that name. And you’re not one of them.”

I cocked my head slightly and spoke distinctly, “On… _this side of the stones_ , you mean?” His eyes went wide. But I had to make sure. “ _Do you understand my meaning_?”

“Yes. _Yes_ , I understand.” He was a little breathless, and settled onto the bench, looking up at me, wide-eyed. “Faye, did you say? Have you come from her, then? From Claire? _Is she all right_?”

“No,” I said flatly, as I joined him on the bench. “I mean _no, I haven’t come from her_ ,” I added quickly, seeing him blanche. “I’ve come _looking_ for her. She’s my… she’s an old friend of my father’s. From when she was in Paris twenty years ago.”

Roger’s brow furrowed in thought. “Paris…” He looking sharply up at me in wonder, “Not— _Raymond_?”

“Yes!” I laughed, thoroughly astonished. “How did you—?”  

“She spoke of him! So he _was_ from another time. She thought he might have been, but didn’t have any proof.”

I made a small sound indicating confirmation and conversational interest, but certainly didn’t want to lead the conversation toward speculation on Raymond’s supernatural capabilities. I pressed on, “I need to find Claire to…so I can _pass on a message_ …from Raymond.” I said, with sudden inspiration. “Can you tell me where she is? I’ve been searching for _weeks_ and—”

“She’s gone.”

My heart plummeted. “ _Gone_?”

“Aye. Gone _back_.”

“Through the stones?” I said, now _I_ the breathless one. “But why?”

“To get back to her husband. To _Jamie._  Until last year, she’d thought he died at Culloden. I helped her find out the truth.” He couldn’t keep the note of pride from his voice. “And learning he was alive after so many years, she had to go after him.”

Taking a swig of cider to hide my eyes for a moment, I cleared my throat. “So…the year she went back to would have been…”

“1766. Or ‘67 by now. She left over seven months ago, back in November.”

_Of ALL the—I cursed inwardly in_ multiple _languages at the ridiculously poor timing of fate and my own impulsiveness. If I’d just_ stayed put _instead of running off to Oliver, I’d have been able to—_

“You should know that I found something.” Roger pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket, voice now grave. “Their death notice, I’m afraid.”

I recoiled from the proffered paper, “Please don’t tell me—I don’t want to know those kinds of things if I don’t have to. ” 

“It’s not for some time, ken,” he said, quickly, “but if you’re going after Claire, you should know that she’ll most likely be in North Carolina by now. The newspaper was produced by an F. Fraser in Wilmington. A relative, maybe, given the name. At the very least, he _knew_ them, based on how he wrote the obituary. And this newspaper was established in ‘67, so likely he’ll be able to point you to them.”

_Carolina. The colonies, then._

“ _Thank you_ , Roger. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me. It’s paltry thanks for what you’ve given me, but will you let me buy you a drink?” 

Roger accepted the drink, but had begun looking at me more closely. Scrutinizing. As he raised the foamy lager to his mouth a few minutes later, he paused, saying, “There’s something… _terribly_ familiar about you…are you sure we haven’t—”

_“There he is!”_ Roger’s fangirls had found him, and mobbed him once again, completely surrounding him on all sides, even crawling over the table to get an autograph or snap a photo. 

Seizing this chance, I slipped away in the confusion. As much as I would have enjoyed speaking with Mr. Wakefield further—imagine, learning more about Claire from someone who’d known her, _recently!_ —I wanted to make an exit before he could examine my face too closely.

* * *

**I didn’t waste any time,** and checked out of my room at the inn at once. I made a few important stops. First, to purchase one of the latest Jessica Gutenbergs—a horrid thing, but the best to be had under the circumstances. And second, to pay a visit to a local solicitor. I penned the letter hastily, as well as instructions for its delivery, hoping the paper would hold up for another 161 years.

Scarcely three hours after leaving the festival, I was huffing up the hill to the stones. The climb was just as punishing as it had been in May, but I scarcely noticed. For the first time in _months_ , I was so happy that I thought I would float above the treetops and right up into the clouds. None of my  _ifs_ or fears mattered right now.

**They were alive, _both of them_. Claire and James— _Jamie_**.  **And I knew where to find them.**


	9. How Small the Seed

_July, 1767  
_

_Cross Creek, North Carolina_

 

**“Jamie?”**

“Mmphmm?” He was lying naked on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes.

With no set work with which to occupy ourselves, we were rather shamelessly lounging in bed to avoid the stifling heat. It was a luxurious bed for any circumstance, all dark wood and fine coverings. But it was  _paradise_ compared with the roadsides, wagons, hovels, and vermin-ridden inns that had been our lot since washing up on the American coast nearly two months ago. Through many dangers, toils, and snares we had come since leaving France, but over half a year later, we were at last in a place of rest in Jocasta Cameron’s home at River Run. With young Ian, God be praised, though I shuddered at thought of all that he—and we—had endured to get here.

I placed a palm on Jamie’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall. “You’ve been awfully quiet today.”

He lifted his elbow a trifle to peer out at me roguishly, “I wasnae all _that_ quiet about it. Nor were you.”

I grinned back and laid a kiss near one nipple, making him shiver. Before completely succumbing to the July day, we’d made some rather _spectacular_ heat of our own. But I wasn’t to be thrown off the trail quite as easily as that. “Jamie, you know what I mean. What have you been thinking about?”

“This and that, _mo chridhe._ Nothing to worry over.” His response came too quickly, tone too conspicuously light.

“Were you… perhaps thinking of Governor Tryon’s offer? The land in the mountains? I’ve been wanting to ask.” In fact I’d been dreading it, thinking of the gravestone awaiting him back in Scotland. But we had to discuss it sometime.

He paused before answering. “That was… one of the things, for certain.”

“And? What do you think?”

He sighed, flushed face emerging to view as he folded his hands over his chest. “I cannae deny that I like the idea greatly. Land… people to look after…a chance to be near mountains again… There isnae much to _dislike_ about it…”

“Tell me,” I coaxed, gently, though his evasion was making me anxious.

He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, fidgeting. “I wasnae thinking about the offer itself. More about… why we cannae accept.”

“Can’t accept?” I hadn’t been expecting that, and I breathed a great inward sigh of relief. But curiosity compelled me to ask, “But why?”

“It’s…weel… its _Faith_.”

The cold weight settled deep in my stomach. It always did at the thought of her, and that was often. But this time it felt more like ice, cracking and splintering painfully into my insides. It was the first we had spoken aloud of her to one another since the snowy field outside of Rouen. The impotence of it, of _knowing_ , but being unable to _do_ anything. It was far… far too painful.

I barely managed the words. “What about Faith?”

He was studying the ceiling intently. “It’s just that…there’s part of me that cannae… cannae be at peace until we’ve tried. To find her.”

“Oh, _Jamie_.” Heartbreak for her and tenderness for him flooded my heart simultaneously, mingling into a terrible, heavy ache that threatened to plummet right through me. I took his hand and pressed it to my lips. “I know… I don’t think we’ll ever be at peace. But what can we… Raymond said …”

“Aye…aye…”

We lay quiet for a very long time. Connected. But quiet.

“But if she ever _does_ come back, Claire,” there was a spark in his voice now, “I dinna want to be so far in the backcountry that we cannae be found. Or so obliged to tenants or governors that we cannae drop what we’re doing and set off to wherever she’s been sighted.”

He rolled to face me, already answering the question I had been about to voice. “ _Jared_. He’s keeping his network listening for mention of _la dame blanche_ about in France. Surely if she came back to this time, it would be there that she’d go first…and if we’re near the water, news will reach us quickly.”

“I… suppose you’re right.” My head was buzzing. I’d carefully suppressed these thoughts. _Any_ thought of actually finding her. The chances were so agonizingly remote that we could ever…that she might…

I managed a small smile. “It’s a good idea, Jamie. I’m….I’m glad you thought of it.”  I couldn’t bear to take away hope from him, no matter how small the seed.

“You’re no’ upset about it then? About staying near the coast?” he asked, a bit nervously.

“No. Not at all.” I kissed him in reassurance. Then hesitated, the thought just occurring to me,  “Will we…erm…remain in Cross Creek, then?”

He made a face. “No, I think not. As much as I’m grateful to my aunt for her hospitality, I dinna care for the thought of living under her thumb indefinitely.”

“Hallelujah!” I said, smacking his hip enthusiastically.

He laughed, leaning in to kiss my temple. My throat. My shoulder. He laid his head against my chest, sighing. “Nay, it should be Wilmington, I think. A port, with news and supplies coming in often. Near Cross Creek but not so near as to be _convenient_. Not crawling with the king’s agents like New Bern. And large enough to support the trade of a printer.”

“Oh! So you’ll send for your press, then?”

“Already have. As soon as we reached Charleston. Dinna expect it for another few months, but I think I can stomach the luxuries of River Run till then. Or perhaps,” he said, brightening further, “I can persuade Jocasta to advance us a loan. I should like to take stock of the town for as long as possible before trying to make a living there. It’ll help to learn the way of the place. Who’s who, and the like.”

“Quite right.” I said, stroking his head. “Wilmington, then?”

“Wilmington. At least…for a time.”

* * *

He’d made love to her again, slow and savoring this time, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen. She lay curled against his chest now, her dark hair pooled across him.

It wasn’t new or uncommon, this feeling. Scarcely a day passed that he didn’t feel the aching need to press her to his heart and cherish her in whatever way he was able. But the tenderness he felt in this moment, watching her sweet face in sleep, reached wide and deep in him. It was both love of her own precious self…and love of the children she had borne him. And love of her again for the gift of them, however far away they might be..

_Lord…that they might be safe. Faith and Brianna._

There was a knock at the door, and Phaedre’s voice drifted in from the hall. “Mr. Fraser? There’s a woman outside asking after you and Mrs. Fraser.”

“A woman?”

“Tallest woman I’ve ever seen, sir. Red hair. Dressed in gentleman’s clothing, if you believe it, the _scandal_. I would have turned her away outright, particularly with it being so near suppertime, but she insisted you would want to speak with her.”

“Verra well.” Reluctantly, he shifted Claire’s head onto the pillow, smoothing her hair away from her face. He pulled the coverlet over her naked body so she mightn’t be chilled upon awakening.

He dressed quietly, quickly, and with a final kiss and a murmured, “I love you, _mo nighean donn_ ” for his sleeping bride, headed down the stairs to receive the unknown visitor awaiting him in the dusk.

* * *

_Mid-September 1767_

_Virginia_

**“And then, just as we were all having a good time, Sir Prick of Prickton-upon-Pricke decides to show up again.”**

“Acton?” The jet-black mare beneath me snorted, not caring for the shrill laugh of incredulity I emitted so close to her ear. I patted her neck in apology, bending low to duck under a low branch overhanging the path. “You didn’t scare him away sufficiently last time?”

“Apparently not,” Oliver went on. “He was acting practically chummy. Bought everyone a round, and tried to apologize to me for being so rude to you last time.”

“Really? I can’t imagine him having a crisis of conscience about much of anything.” I still prickled a bit at memory of those lazily hateful eyes.

“Nor could I, but he said it was ‘unconscionably rude’ to speak in that fashion to you, particularly to the girlfriend of an old schoolmate. Said to pass on his apology to you. Even asked me how you were coming along with finding your family.”

“How did he know I was—“

“Says he just assumed; we all did, to be honest. It’s practically storybook: orphan looking for the long-lost parents and all. Anyway, he even went on to offer his services, to help me with searching for records and archives. ‘To make amends.’”

“Curiouser and curiouser. What did you say?”

“I told him to _fuck off_.”

“Ollie, you _didn’t_!” I laughed.

“I did, and I’d do it again, if only to see the look on his face. That was a right treat…”

“Hate I missed it!” I stretched stiffly in the saddle, “Ugh, I hate to go, but I’ll be in Richmond in a few more miles. It’ll be a nice change to sleep in a real bed tonight.”

There was an oddly long pause. Then he started in brightly, “So, what’s the next stop today?”

I sighed. “Transmission gap.”

“Damn, not _again_.”

Ollie had received my letter as planned, and had sent Cutler to meet me at 1767 Craigh na dun. The replacement transmitter he’d brought for me had been a particular comfort on the long ocean voyage from Inverness. I’d booked passage on the _Helena_ , bound for Baltimore. It was either that or wait several more weeks for one to Norfolk, or over a month for the next ship to Wilmington itself. And I had been in no mood to wait for anything. Two months of cramped solitude on a rocking ship would have driven me mad. But I had Oliver there to talk with.

Now, though, patches of one-sided dead air were occurring with greater frequency. One minute all would be well. Then the signal would go dark for one or the other of us. Sometimes for just a few seconds. Sometimes for hours.

“It’s the price we pay for being the Collective’s guinea pigs. I’m afraid,” he said.

“Well anyhow, I’d said that the next town was Richmond and that I’d be there in a few minutes.”

“And about time for sleep here, anyway. I love you, sweetheart. Be safe.”

“Sweet dreams, _mon amour_.”

* * *

**Richmond was by far the largest settlement I’d encountered since leaving Baltimore;**  a tobacco trading hub, and home to a bustling population of wealthy English planters and German émigrés. I even tended the arm of a young Huguenot boy in a tavern who, in return, helped me with information about how to proceed on my journey. The James River, south of the city, he explained, had rapids. Big ones. You had to go upriver to reach the spot where the ferries ran. After a blissful night spent in a real bed with real pillows, I awoke at dawn, mounted with fresh supplies, and made my way to the crossings.

“Sorry, missie,” the pungent ferryman grunted at sight of me, holding up a staying hand. “Only got space for one horse per crossing, and the Scot’s already paid.” I scarcely needed the gnarled finger pointing to see the young man leading his mount toward the gangplank. The horse shied, and the man turned back to pat her nose reassuringly.

It was so impossible that I almost didn’t credit my eyes.

“Mr…. _Wakefield_?”

He started and looked up sharply, locking eyes with me. “Holy mother of…” He grinned, and opened his mouth to speak.

The ferryman barked, “ _Get on with it_ , get the horse on, can’t wait all day.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t, I need to stay to talk to my friend,” he said, already leading the horse from the dock.

“You’ve already paid, no refunds.”

“Fine, I’ll pay again on the next crossing. Double business for you today.” He was flustered, but his eyes were glowing.

We walked away from the docks to where we wouldn’t be overhead.

I could barely contain myself. “Mr. Wakefield, what on earth are you _doing_ here?”

He was bubbling excitedly. “Took passage into Norfolk, then heard of an opportunity here in Richmond building a new storehouse. It was good money, and I figured a week or two to earn some cash would help my financial prospects considerably. And call me _Roger_ , would you?”

“Fine, _Roger_ , but what I meant was, what on earth are you doing _in the eighteenth century_? You could have mentioned that you were a traveler too!”

“I’m not!” he said, “I mean, I suppose I am _now_. This is the first time I’ve come through.”

“But what made you come through at all?” We had settled on a large boulder by the water, the horses hobbled contentedly nearby.

“Well, I suppose it’s because of you,” he laughed. “After you gave me the slip at the festival, I wanted to tell Bree about you at once. I hadn’t talked with her a few weeks, as she was supposed to have been off the grid for a few months for a research excursion; but I called the university organizer in hopes of getting in touch with her, and was told that she hadn’t even registered for the trip. Got in touch with a friend of her family and he told me that she’d bloody gone to Scotland ‘indefinitely’ in May, and—”

“Roger, Roger, slow down,” I managed to get in, “who are you talking about?”

He made a small sound of exasperation, “Bree— _Brianna_.”

 “ _Lovely_ , but I have _no_ idea who that is!” I said, with the same impatient tone. 

He looked blank for a moment “Didn’t we… at the festival, didn’t I tell you…” Seeing my stare, he said, “Alright then, guess not… _Bree is Claire’s daughter_. And she sneaked to the stones to go after her without even  _bloody_ _telling_ me and — ”

“ — Claire’s _daughter_?” I thought I would fall off the rock. “With… Mr. Randall, you mean?”

“Raised by him, but no, with Jamie. Conceived before Culloden, born in 1948. Claire says she’s the spit of him. You don’t find many six foot tall women, even in my time.“

I _did_ fall off the rock then. Well, I’d meant to get to my feet, but I was so dazed I could barely find them as I stumbled to the water’s edge. _Tall. And went through the stones in May_.

“Fae…You alright?” He had come up behind me where I now stood, struggling to remain calm. “Fae, what’s the matter?”

My voice was still high and strained. “Does Br…Brianna have… _long red hair_?”

“Aye, she does, but–”

It surprised me as much as him when I sank to one knee in the sand and dissolved into tears. They weren’t tears of joy. Or sadness either. I was simply _overcome_.

Roger’s hand was warm on my back as he squatted beside me. “Hey, it’s alright.” he said, kind and gentle. “Whatever’s wrong, it’ll be alright, what can I — ”

With a moment of instant decision, I inhaled sharply, “Roger if I tell you something, will you believe me?”

Forgetting for a moment to be soothing, he snorted, “What kind of question is _that_?”

“A very important one.” I rose and turned, eyes still wet but burning with intensity. “You have to know that no matter how absurd this sounds—and believe me, it’s going to sound utterly _impossible_ —I swear to you on Claire’s life that I’m telling the truth. _Do you hear me_?”

He was standing now too, alarmed. But I had his full attention. I walked a few paces toward the horses, hands on my hips. Breathing. Steadying.

I raised my head and met his eye fully as I turned back to face him.

“ _I’m their daughter, too_ …. Claire’s …and Jamie’s.“  

He was staring at me with such shock and horror that I thought he would pass out.

But my voice was steady.

**_“I’m Faith Fraser.”_ **


	10. In the Family

  **“Holy Mother,” said Roger, for the millionth time.**

 _Piece of shit_ , said Oliver, also for the millionth time.  He couldn’t hear any of my replies today and was making his frustration with the offending apparatus abundantly clear.

We’d been sitting there by the James for a long time. I’d told Roger everything. About Raymond. The blue healing light that had brought my infant body back to life. About the revelations in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. My red outburst against Raymond. About Oliver. And about helping the red-haired girl…my _sister_ … through the stones at Craigh na dun. He had been pacing for a while now, the crunch of smooth river rocks and sand a steady cadence beneath my words.

“Can I—” he said abruptly, long after I’d finished, “can I just _look_ at you for a minute?” He took his time, barely blinking. Standing close. Standing back. Walking around me.

At last, he exhaled, nodding slightly. “You’ve got Bree’s eyes.”

“I do?” I asked, a little breathless. I’d remembered they were blue, but hadn’t registered any great similarity between us.

“Aye. Just the same” he said, arms folded. “And did you know you’ve got a birthmark behind your ear?”

“Oh, I… no, I didn’t ….” I’d always hated my ears, the way they stuck out. I brought my fingers up to the warm hollows behind the lobes.

“You do. Like a diamond. Bree has one just like it.”

A glowing excitement was rising within me. “So…you _believe_ me?”

He gave a rueful laugh. “If you’d asked me a year ago if I believed people could be raised from the dead with blue light, I would have called the police. But seeing as how I’ve accepted _time travel_ as a fact of life, now…” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head a bit as he sat back down beside me on the boulder “…I’m _choosing_ to believe you, yes. God, you  _do_ look like Claire,” he said, studying me closer.

I nodded. “I have her picture. From the newspaper, just after she came back.”

“Well, keep in mind that was twenty-odd years ago. It won’t be as obvious a resemblance now. Still, though,” He said, scrutinizing me once more, “aye…she’s undeniably there…You don’t quite _sound_ like her though,” he said with good humor. It was nothing close to the tone with which Acton had made more or less the same statement, and I responded in kind.

“ _Mais, non, monsieur,_ ” I said in mock outrage, “ _c’est tout à fait évident que je suis anglaise, non_?”

We both laughed, then looked up as shouts began to echo across the water. The ferry was pulling back into the docks for the third time. Roger rose and began untying his horse.

“Wait,” I said, anxious, “there’s still so much I want to—”

“It’s a long road to Wilmington,” he said, handing me my own reins. “I’ll wait for you on the other side of the river, aye?”  

* * *

**It was pleasant to have a traveling companion on this second half of my journey down the American coast, particularly since the transmitter seemed to have turned permanently against me.** I could hear Oliver from time to time, usually just random snatches of his daily life, not directed at me, but he hadn’t been able to hear me since the road north of Richmond.

Roger was kind, funny, and effusive; and as we made our way slowly south through fields and forests, he told me the stories of my family. Of the lives I might have had.

“What’s that you’re writing?” He asked on the third day as we were stopped at a stream to water the horses.

“Oh… nothing,” I said, embarrassed, quickly closing the notebook.

“No, really—I mean, I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve seen you writing in it almost every time we stop. Is it a diary? A journal I mean?”

“No, not precisely. It’s my… findings. About _them_.” I looked down. “When I was searching for Claire, in your time, I wrote everything down in here to keep track. A tidbit here, a date there. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t want anything to be lost. Since finding you here again, you’ve told me so much. Not just the facts but impressions. Small things. What they’re like…. and I want to remember all of it.” I was blushing, the last sentence no more than a mumble.

“Nothing at all wrong about that,” he said. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

Sheepishly, I shook my head, and he came to join me on the fallen log by the stream. He took the proffered book, and let it fall open to the pages entitled _Brianna (Bree)_. He smiled, skimming down the lines and paragraphs, a mix of French and English, reading out a word here and there.

“ _Tall_ , certainly. _Blue eyes like mine (Jamie’s)_. _Brave_. Aye, she is, like all of you.” Her childhood in Boston. Helping with the search for Jamie. University. Page upon page were filled with my notes, for Roger knew her deeply and had had much to tell.

“You’ve captured a lot here,” he said, with a light in his eyes. “I can’t wait for you to meet her… _for real. S_ he’s an _artist_ , did I tell you that?”

I shook my head.

“Aye, a master with a pencil. So deft and quick. She can cut right to the center of you with just a few strokes.” He let me lean in and capture the concept with a few strokes of my own.

Next came Jamie’s pages, the most sparse, as Roger had only Claire’s stories to rely upon. His family and history. His conflicts with the crown. Meeting Claire. The scrapes and dangers he’d come through with her. How he’d meant to lay down his life at Culloden. _James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser_ , I’d written at the top. And in one of the margins, underlined: _man of honor._

Finally, Roger thumbed through the pages dedicated to Claire. _English. Traveller. Orphan. A nurse in the war. A healer in Scotland. A surgeon in Boston. Opinionated. Devoted_.

“ _Headstrong_ ,” Roger laughed, reading one entry. “You’re certainly not wrong, but I don’t think I used that word _precisely_. What made you write that one down?”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t one particular story. Just an impression of her.” I thought for a moment though. “Being a physician in a time—times—when she was judged and looked down on for it. Carrying on for twenty years for Bree’s sake after Culloden. Saving Jamie in the abbey after the prison. All of it. She seems to put her mind to things she wants and pushes toward them regardless of the dangers or the supposed propriety.”

“Aye. She does. She’s a remarkable woman, your mother.”  

He closed the book and handed it back to me. “Thank you for showing me. It’s wonderful, Fae, truly. But… I suppose I don’t quite understand. Why go to the trouble of it? We’ll be in Wilmington in a few days’ time. You’ll have the genuine articles then, and you’ll begin to know them for yourself.”

I looked down quickly.  _What if they can’t bear to look at me, Roger? What if it’s only the one meeting before I decide I must let them return to their lives?_

“You never know,” I said simply, tucking the notebook carefully back into its place in my satchel.  

* * *

**There were few mile markers or landmarks on the rough road. Dwellings—not to mention towns—were few and far between.** But on the afternoon of the 7th day, we passed a man—driving a wagon loaded with barrels and cartons from market—who informed us we were less than five miles to the crossing with the road to New Bern. Three days’ ride to Wilmington, or maybe two if we increased our daily riding time by several hours.

Roger and I made camp for the night in a grove of pines not far from the road. We leaned contentedly against the trunks, talking comfortably over our now-empty bowls. For once, it was Roger’s turn to ask questions. 

“So, what was it like growing up with Raymond?”

“It was…wonderful,” I said, wistfully. “Traveling the world. Through time. Seeing the entire spectrum of history and…and seeing it all together. He taught me. Made me learn things I’d never have encountered otherwise. And he could always make me laugh. Always put me at ease. He was…everything to me.”

I hadn’t meant to say so much, but the thoughts kept rising to the surface. Roger didn’t say anything. Just waited.

“I think…” I started.

“Mm?” he said, gently urging me to go on.

“I think…if it had been _only_ learning the truth of my parents that night … I wouldn’t have run.”

“No? What was it then?” Roger said, leaning forward a little toward the fire.

“It was…all of it.” I placed my bowl on the ground and leaned forward too, resting my elbows on my knees. “Realizing in the course of an hour that my entire life had been built around these fundamental lies…my birth…that I couldn’t travel on my own…Lies that he constructed to keep me with him. That’s what makes me the most angry now. The selfishness of the lies. That he hadn’t trusted that I would still love him, or that I’d consider staying with him, if I knew the truth.”

I laughed humorlessly. “That’s the irony of it. I think he would have helped me find the Frasers himself if I’d stayed long enough to ask.” I rested my chin on my laced fingers, speaking quieter. “We could have worked through all of it, I’m sure. Helped one another understand… I can’t tell you how much I’ve regretted it since. Hurting him like that, and running.”

“Don’t worry,” Roger said, “hot-headedness runs in your family on both sides…add that to the book.” We laughed, but weakly.  He stoked the fire with a long stick. “Are you still angry with him? With Raymond?”

“Yes.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “It doesn’t change what he did. _But that’s not why I’m here_ ,” I said quickly, looking up in alarm, “I swear to you, that isn’t why I came searching for them.”

“Oh, I know,” Roger said without hesitation as he resumed his seat. “You have Claire’s face, remember? And you’re just as bad at disguising your emotions. I see your eyes when you ask questions about them. When I tell you something about Bree, or Claire, or a story about Jamie. It’s never once crossed my mind that you’re doing this out of spite for Raymond.”

 _Döner kebab_ , blipped Oliver’s voice in my ear.

“I’m adopted too, you know.” 

“Really? I’m sorry…I never asked.”

He waved a hand in dismissal, continuing, “It’s not the same as your situation, of course. I always knew who my birth parents had been, and my dad (my uncle) never pretended otherwise. But I understand. It’s nothing about the person that raised you that pushes you to wonder… Not that you were lacking anything in your upbringing, necessarily…”

He had his hands clasped, and was rubbing one thumbnail as he stared into the fire.

 “It’s just that you hunger to understand. To _know_. Raymond might have made you who you are in all the ways that matter, but deep down there’s a part of you that needs to know the people who gave you your body, too… your blood and your bones… your… _soul_ , maybe. This is about you feeling like you’re a _whole person_.”

A lump had settled in my throat, and I felt an overwhelming wave of sadness and longing. “You sound just like Oliver,” I said, my voice quivering just a bit. “He told me that I’d be _half a person until I tried_.”

“He must be a smart man, this Oliver. As your future brother-in-law, I approve of the match.”

I laughed. “ _Brother-in-law_? Are you and Brianna serious, then?”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “We’re not engaged, but would I have risked my life coming through the stones and across the ocean for _just some girl_ I fancied?”

“No. You wouldn’t,” I conceded with a grin. “Well then, your future sister-in-law approves of yours as well.” I liked the thought of having Roger for a brother.

We prepared for sleep, then, curling up in our blankets and listening to the sounds of the night.

Enough time passed that I assumed he was asleep. I was startled when he said suddenly, “But it’s not just about _you_ getting something from it, you know. You’re doing this _for them_ , too.”

“ _For them_? Roger, one of my worries from the beginning has been how selfish I’m being. To make them dredge up horrible memories and force them at a moment’s notice to decide whether they want a zombie for a daughter. They have no choice in this. They’re going to have to face this in three days whether they want to or not. Is that really _for them_?”

“You’ve got to stop thinking that way, Fae. And sure, it matters a lot to you and you’re the one initiating the meeting. But to put it this way: would you have gone to search for your birth parents if you hadn’t known how much they’d wanted you as a baby? How much they mourned you? Or even how much they loved each other?”

I considered this. If I had proof–like I’d supposed my entire life–that I was just the unfortunate result of a one-time encounter. Or even the bastard of a wealthy lord from whom I might gain position or wealth. Would I have felt so strongly the need to seek out and make a connection?

“No…” I said firmly. “I wouldn’t have.”

“So see, it’s not just a selfish thing… You want _them_ to be whole, too.”

A bubble of pine sap popped in the heat of the fire. Somewhere close, a night bird sounded its mournful cry.

“Do you think they’ll believe me, Roger?” I spoke quietly, as if not wanting to be heard. So that I wouldn’t have to hear the answer.

“I really don’t know,” he said frankly, just as quietly.

I’d expected this answer, but my heart still sank. “But _you_ believe me.”

“Yes, I do, truly. But I didn’t bury you or see you dead. I’m not saying they won’t come around but… it’ll be a shock, traumatic even, maybe. At first, at least… _I’m sorry_ ,” he said abruptly, sensing the effect his words were having on me. “I shouldn't—”

“Yes, you should,” I said, stiffly. “It’s no worse than I’ve worried all along. Of _course_ it’ll be hard for them to believe… if it’s even possible.”

I pulled the blanket up to my chin, rolling onto my side. “You should know that I haven’t been expecting to _be_ one of them… to be taken in or be given any place in their lives. If it’s only just to meet them…just the once…”

“I’ll be right there with you, Fae.”

Had he been close enough, I would have reached out and squeezed his hand. As it was, I merely whispered a fervent, “Thank you” into the night. It meant more than I could express.

But as I closed my eyes to sleep, my heart was laid heavier with fears and doubts than it had been since 1969.

* * *

**“ _FAE?_ ”**

The sound of Oliver’s voice over the transmitter woke me at once, and the tone of it froze my blood in my veins.

“Ollie?” I said, rising quickly from my blankets and darting into the woods to avoid waking Roger.

“ _Fae….Fae… Please_ tell me you can hear me…” He was crying, moaning. Jesus Christ… _he was in pain_.

“Ollie!” I choked out, heart racing in terror, “Ollie, _mon cher_ , I’m _here_ , what—”

“— _hear me_? Are you there?? If you can hear me… _Please God…please let her hear me_ …”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to call the police or Cutler or _someone_ who could get to him at once.  But there was nothing I could do but listen to him talk through teeth gritted in anguish.

“Acton and his his mates broke into the flat while I was sleeping…Beat me…. Dragged me to the desk and used my fingerprints to get access to my files… About you… Your family…”

I couldn’t breathe. _I couldn’t. Breathe._

“ _They’re coming_ , Fae… for all of you… prophecy…James Fraser’s bloodline is a threat to English rule or some… rubbish….but Acton believes it, you saw what he’s like… Fae: _they’re coming to stamp out the line_.”

I was slumped against the trunk of a tree. He inhaled sharply and cried out with a gut-wrenching sound. I slid to the ground, covering my mouth with both hands.

“Ocracoke…” he ground out, breathing heavily. “It’s an island not far from Wilmington….that’s where they’re coming through, at the equin…equin-nox… know about the print shop…”

He was getting weaker and less coherent with every word.

“…took me somewhere, locked me…dark…don’t know…hit me over the head with a… can’t get the bleeding to ssstop… how long I’ll … _Please…let her hear m-me_ … _Plea_ —”

The connection flickered, sputtered. Then went out.

No matter how many times I sobbed out his name. Pleaded.

Nothing. 

Radio silence.

* * *

**My world had turned upside down that night in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel.**

In the last sixty seconds, it had turned inside-out.

 

_Oliver, alone, bleeding out and left for dead._

_Acton’s eyes glowing as he grabbed Brianna by the hair and ran her through._

_Blood pooling out onto white linen as he slit Jamie and Claire’s throats while they slept._

_All of them. Dead in a heap at my feet._

 

All because I’d…

* * *

**Roger woke just after dawn**.  He saw his brown mare tied to the tree where he’d left her, happily munching grass. Alone.

He bolted to his feet and looked wildly around. “Fae? _Fae, where are you_?” he called. Her satchel and packs were gone, too, but he still called frantically for her, “FAE!”

Feeling his toe connect with something hard, he swore and looked down to see a rock—a large one—sitting in his tricorner hat. He snatched up the torn page wedged beneath it and read. And read it again.

“ _DAMN you_ , Claire!” he bellowed to the trees, stuffing the note into his pocket. “Yes, _YOU_. For spawning the two most _impulsive_ and _heedless_ daughters known to man.”

He was shaking wildly, his heart in his throat, terror coursing through him like a current.

**He threw on his saddlebags, mounted, and rode like hell, praying he wouldn’t be too late.**


	11. Fraser and Son, Printers

_September 19, 1767_

_Wilmington, North Carolina_

**“A toast,” Jamie said, raising his glass to me, then to Fergus, “to _Fraser and Son, Printers._ ”**

Fergus was beaming. “ _Merci beaucoup_ , milord. _Vraiment_. I will not let you down.”

“Ye’ll do brawly, and no one I’d rather have as my partner.  _Slàinte mhath_.”

We were standing in the empty storefront, toasting our new endeavor and taking in the space. The room was large, dominated by a counter on which lay the large iron keys and the lease documents next to the bottle of whisky. There were several rooms adjoining this one for storage; several more above that would serve as sleeping quarters; a roomy garret; and a small kitchen and root cellar. It would be a bit _cozy_ , given that we had Jamie, myself, Ian, Fergus (soon to encompass both Marsali _and_ the baby), and now _Bree_ all needing room and board. But it would do for the time being.

_Bree_. I smiled at the thought as I sipped my own glass, only half listening to Fergus and Jamie talking of type drawers and ink pans. Having her here was a miracle, and seeing her with her father—walking the grounds at River Run; riding or shooting; talking of history or telling tales; and more than anything, the simple light of joy that overflowed their matching blue eyes when in one another’s company—was one of the great delights I’d experienced in my entire life. 

We had insisted that she and young Ian remain at River Run for a few days longer, promising that we would bring them back with us when we returned in several days’ time for the second wagonload of supplies and furnishings for our new quarters. Neither Bree nor Ian had been _at all_ pleased with this arrangement, and I’d feared we would have a mutiny on our hands. But the canny intervention of Jocasta, who chose this moment to unveil a set of fine paints ordered from Philadelphia—a gift to celebrate Bree’s unexpected advent into the family—was enough to quell the argument. _At least for Bree_ , who scampered off at once to find a suitable muse. Ian grumbled about _being left behind like a child_ , but finally came round under Jamie’s reminder of the weighty and _Very Manly_ duty of protecting the estate while we were gone. Jamie leaving his second-best sword in the lad’s hand with exhortations to practice was enough to seal the bargain. Offspring and proxy-offspring appeased, Jamie, Fergus, and I had set out for Wilmington, to take possession of the property Jamie had scouted out for us last month

Jamie and Fergus, having finished their third glasses, were rolling up their sleeves. 

“Would ye be willing to fetch us some food, _sassenach_ , while we begin unloading the wagon? Dinna want to wear ourselves out working in the heat on empty stomachs.”

“I’ve been a slave to your stomach for many years, my darling,” I said, setting down my glass on the counter and rising on tiptoes to deliver a kiss, “and I wouldn’t _dream_ of stopping now.”

A quarter of an hour later, basket full of bread, cheese, summer sausage, and rosy apples, I was walking back down the street, peering admiringly at the sign hanging above the print shop window two streets ahead. Jamie, standing atop the wagon and handing boxes down to Fergus, very nearly whacked his head against it every time he straightened. It still bore the name and emblem of the previous tenant, but had a handsome, scrolling shape. Give it a fresh Fraser and Son paint job— _Bree’s first commission!—_ and it would look rather fine, I thought. 

“CLAIRE!”

The shout cut through the noises of the street like a bugle call. I thought for a moment it had been Jamie, for that R was so unmistakably Scottish; but I could still see the copper head bent to its task .

As I turned, it took no more than a second to locate the speaker barreling toward me through the crowd on a brown mare. I barely had time to set down my basket before _Roger_ bloody _Wakefield_ had leapt down from the saddle and clasped me so tightly in his arms I thought I would burst.

“ _God_ , Claire, I’m so glad to—” he cut himself off with a heavy breath, and sounded as though he were about to cry, “—I’m _so happy_ to see you.”

“Roger, you’re— _you’re here!_ ” I said, rather stupidly, laughing and hugging him back.  

“Aye, aye I’m here, all right,” he said, tone heavy as if to encompass the sheer magnitude of that simple statement. He held me abruptly away from him, a look of fear in his eye. “ _Bree_ , is she here? Is she safe?”  

“ _She’s fine,_ ” I said, rubbing his arm reassuringly, “In Cross Creek with Jamie’s aunt at the moment, but safe and well.” My heart gave a tug at sight of the resultant teary smile. I knew she’d missed him, too, though she didn’t speak of it aloud.

He squeezed me tight again, slumping against me in relief. “God, I’ve been searching for you all morning, after riding all the night and all yesterday…but no one in Wilmington seems to know of a printer named Fraser. _From the future, ken?_ ” He added, anticipating my _how the bloody hell did you know?_ line of inquiry.

“Well,“ I laughed, groping under his arm to snatch the reins of the mare, who was taking notice of a rather fine patch of grass across the street, “Small wonder it was difficult, we’ve only just acquired our premises today!”

The social set of Wilmington were more accepting than most cities in which I’d lived in my life, but even I was becoming aware of the stares we were receiving; me, holding a hungry horse and embracing a rather bedraggled-looking bearded stranger in the roadway. He really did look like it’d been some time since he’d slept, and _very_ much like he could use a stiff drink. But I sensed it wasn’t just physical exhaustion that prompted him to continue clinging to me like a child. As genuinely fond as I was of Roger (for Bree’s sake and for my own), I was rather taken aback by this outpouring of affection.

I patted his back soothingly with my horse-free hand, and said, slowly, “Roger, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you, but…what the _dickens_ made you come through in the first place?”

He straightened a little, enough to look me in the eyes, but didn’t release me from his arms. “ _Brianna_. When I realized she’d gone through the stones without telling me, I knew I must come after her. Make sure she was safe. I wouldn’t have let her risk coming alone if I’d known, I swear, but then—”

“Good lad,” Jamie’s voice grunted suddenly, prompting Roger to jump back from me like a shot. “But might ye be so kind as to explain who ye are that you’re so familiar wi’ my wife and daughter?”

The necessary introductions and explanations were made hastily as I tethered the horse to a nearby post. Jamie was polite, but not entirely inclined to press Brianna’s erstwhile future-born suitor to his bosom _just_ yet. Roger, in turn, looked extremely agitated. But…not by Jamie, I thought. Something was definitely eating at him. Tentatively, I tried to come to his aid.  

“Roger, dear…. if there’s, erm….something you _need to say_ …?”

Roger took a big breath and closed his eyes for a moment, passing a hand over them to rub his temples. “Aye…aye there is something. Something important you both must hear”.

_Good grief_ , surely given Jamie’s less than warm welcome, he wasn’t foolish enough to be asking for Brianna’s hand after scarcely a minute had passed?

There was nothing on earth that could have prepared me for the words he blurted out.

“ _Faith_. Your first daughter. _She’s alive_.”

My mouth fell open. I tried to form words, but it was as if my brain had disconnected entirely from my jaw. And the rest of me as well, come to think of it.

Jamie was far quicker to recover his capacities of speech, though he sounded just as dazed as I felt. “Aye, lad, we ken that, but how in _all of creation_ do you come to—?”

“You _do_??” Relief flooded Roger’s face at once, and I really thought he was going to fall down. “Oh—oh _thank God_.” He placed a hand on his chest, breathing heavily. “I truly didn’t know how I was going to convince you. She said—”

“ _Said_?” I’d lurched out of my mute stupor and was staring wildly.

Jamie, too, was staring at Roger, and he groped blindly for my hand. “Ye’ve…ye’ve _seen_ her?”  

Roger nodded, still heaving a bit. “Aye, I have. It’s a very long story, but the two of us have been traveling together. Making our way to find you.”  

I thought I would pass out. Maybe I had. Jamie’s arms were around me and were gripping me so tight, I thought I would snap in two. Frankly, I’m not sure how either of us were standing. For the long months since December, it had been like we were on a tiny boat in a secret, silent hurricane, just the two of us, tossed between mighty waves. Twenty years of grief and loss. The new fear and longing. The wondering. Over and over and over the waves came, each one seeming likely to overpower us. But Faith was there, now, a light of delight and relief and love growing closer and closer to guide us safely through.

“Jamie…she…oh, _Jamie_. She’s _here._ ” I whispered, with something that was either a laugh or a sob.

“I know… I know, _mo chridhe_ … I cannae even…” he pulled me still closer, burying his face in my neck with a small whimpering sound.

“ _But we need to hurry,_ ” Roger said, sharply, with an urgency that pulled us from our tearful reverie at once. He shoved a crumpled page toward us, brows drawn. “Read this. It’ll explain faster than I can.”

Jamie took the page from him (a sheet of  _modern_ paper, unless I was mistaken) and scanned it quickly, his face growing white as a sheet. “God in Heaven…” he whispered, “…. _the brave, wee thing_.”

 He could barely hold the paper steady as he passed it to me.

 

> _Roger,_
> 
> _Transmission from Oliver. Assassins coming from his time through stones to stamp out Fraser line sometime close to the equinox._
> 
> _I think I can stop them at the stones, but I don’t know how many are coming. If they succeed in killing me, or if there are too many for me to take, they’ll hunt down my family. They know about the shop in Wilmington._
> 
> _Roger, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. For the love of God, DO NOT come after me.  I need you to get them far away—my parents and Brianna. Tell them to use a false name. Take them up north, or to the Caribbean. Anywhere, but get them as far away from Ocracoke as you can._
> 
> _You must do this for me, Roger._
> 
> _~~Tell them~~ _
> 
> _~~When you see them~~ _
> 
> _Save them.  
>  Please._
> 
> _F_

 

I couldn’t stop staring at it, running my finger over it …  _F_

_She_ touched this…. _She_ wrote this. 

Then reality descended and Jamie’s words came back to me with a jolt: “ _the brave, wee thing_.” 

My chest tightened. The hurricane swells that seemed so enormous before were now dwarfed by an oncoming tidal wave of sheer terror. “The… equinox,” I gasped, unfettered panic clear in my voice, “that’s… _it can’t be more than a few days away_. What if she—”

Jamie grabbed my arm and pulled me sharply off to the side, blocking us from Roger’s view and speaking low. “ _Do ye trust this man, Claire_?”

“Yes,” I said at once over the blood hammering in my ears, “ _completely_.”

“ _Good_. Then we’ve got to go, _now_.”

Roger’s green eyes were wide. “Go where?”

**“Ocracoke.” Jamie was already moving toward the print shop. He blazed with a heat that chilled me to the bone, despite the noon sun. “She’s gone there prepared to die for our sakes. Before God, _I will be damned if I allow that to happen_.”**


	12. Je Suis Prest

_September 21, 1767_

_Ocracoke_

_**Can you hear me, mon cher?** _

_…Your warning came through. I’m going to stop them._

_…but I need you to be alright._

_…Hold on for me… okay?_

_…Please, Ollie. Hold on._

 

Tears slipped from my eyes as I held my hand tightly against the golden weight hanging silently over my heart. As if by pressing harder, speaking louder, or just repeating it _once_ more, I would suddenly hear him, laughing. Teasing me mercilessly for having misunderstood his last transmission so absurdly. 

_Rien._ Silence.

Just the the distant whinnies of wild horses and the lapping of the sea nearby.  

I had left Roger three days ago, galloping madly to New Bern in the night. From there, I had sold my horse, purchased weapons, swapped my skirts for shirt and breeks, and booked passage to Ocracoke. The humming had been audible nearly as soon as I’d disembarked, and it took me less than an hour to find the stones. Four of them, with a stream running right down the middle, and one with African markings, just as Raymond had once said.

_Raymond_. Would he ever find my body? Ever learn what had happened to me? Or would he just spend the rest of his life wondering? 

 

_Stop that at once. You’re not going to die_.

_I_ might _not die…_

_I_ will _die…. If there is no other way._

 

For two days now, I’d sat in the clearing by the stones in the depths of the tidal forest. Sharpened my new sword and long knife. Slept, shallowly and in short bursts, starting up in dead panic at every tiny noise in the clearing. Forced myself to eat a little. 

But most of all, hour after hour, I pored over my notebook. Fingered the tiny square of newsprint as if I could reach through and touch her. Read and recited from the entries, studying them like scripture. Committed to memory each indelible fragment of them that I carried. The small things: my sister’s favorite songs…the verse my father had engraved on the interlace ring…my mother’s favorite plants to grow in a garden. I held these things greedily in my heart. If it _was_ the end, I wanted to die knowing my family, in whatever way I could.

 

_Oh, Roger…. please see them safe._

 

The night was cool for September, and while the stars gave off a little light, I had kept a large fire burning at the far edge of the clearing. I didn’t want to be caught unawares in the dark. Despite the ample light it provided, I struggled to stay awake. Every muscle in my body ached, protesting the constant prolonged state of readiness to which I had subjected it. 

I’d practiced summoning the red light, wanting to be ready with every weapon I had at my disposal. I managed a few strong, accurate flares, aimed at the scrub pine cones that littered the clearing, but my efforts were still erratic at best. Like the time in Boston with Oliver when I’d set the apartment carpet on fire.

 

_“…bleeding… how long I’ll…”_

 

_Hold on, mon cher._

* * *

**The hum of the stones suddenly accelerated to a roar, and, emerging from a doze, I felt my heart leap violently into my throat**. Snatching up my sword and sticking the knife into my belt, I took up my position on the near side of the creek, looking across it to the stone with the African markings. 

The blood whooshed madly in my ears, anticipation making my thoughts come wild and fast. They would be planning to kill _me_ , for certain, and Jamie. But _Claire_? Would they allow her to live, since she wasn’t of the Fraser bloodline? And would they even _know_ about Brianna _Randall_ , born as she was in the twentieth century?

With a final accelerating sound, Acton appeared, stumbling, on the opposite side of the creek. I scarcely gave him time to straighten. 

“What did you do to him?”

He started, and whirled to face me. He gave a small _ha_  sound of lazy amusement in recognition, but didn’t answer.

I tightened my grip on my sword handle, trying to put its steel in my voice. “ _What did you do to Oliver_?”

He stared at me impassively. “Took what I needed. Disposed of what I didn’t.”

There was no overt malice in his tone. He was discussing something meaningless. Irrelevant. And the emptiness that filled me at this realization was more than I thought I could bear. I wanted to fall to my knees and curl my body around the wound of my grief. Surrender to it. _Oliver._  

But I thought of my father, and made myself stand tall. If I was going to die for being a Fraser, then I would die as a _true Fraser_.  

_Je suis prest_. 

“You’re not going to hurt anyone else that I love.” My voice shook, but with intensity. 

His eyes were gleaming, but he barely changed expression. He might as well have shrugged. “They have to die. _You_ have to die.”

“Your prophecy won’t come true. I swear to you that I have no interest whatsoever in English power.”

“But what of your children? Your great-great-great-grandchildren?” He walked slowly over to the second stone. I countered his path, keeping him always directly across the stream from me as he spoke. “Can you guarantee that they will all promise the same?”

“Kill _me_ , then.” I stabbed my sword hard into the ground and took a step forward, hands up. “Do it. But let  _them_  live in peace. My parents. They won’t have any more children, they’ll be no—”

“And your sister?” My blood froze.

He didn’t wait for an answer, “Its simple. I won’t risk English history being upturned by barbarians carrying blue and white. Not now. Not in the future.”

The stones began to roar again, and a line of men began to emerge in the spaces between the stones on the far side of the creek. Two, three, four; they kept coming. _God… how many were coming?_

Following some visceral instinct I didn’t fully understand, I stepped just outside the ring, summoned the red light to my hand and slammed my palm flat against the nearest stone. Light shot up and out from the base of each stone, the fields joining to form a red-hot dome of energy. I heard screams, cries of astonishment at the sight. I saw one man fall to the ground as he passed accidentally through the red curtain. Acton was staring at me through the rippling currents of light, and for the first time, he looked angry; but unlike his comrades—not _shocked_. I saw his mouth move, barking orders. With effort, I yanked my hand off the stone, snatched up my sword, and ran back into the clearing, almost to my campfire.

The dome had vanished with my withdrawal, but red sparks still emanated hotly from each of the stones. As my body recovered from the drain of energy, I could hear the tympanic _boom_ of someone else trying to come through; the red energy was forming some kind of barrier preventing normal crossing. Counting quickly, I saw that there were five of them, plus Acton, all talking heatedly over the body on the ground, and I breathed half a sigh of relief. If no additional reinforcements could pass through, maybe I stood a chance. But my relief evaporated almost in the same moment. They were all dressed in eighteenth century clothing, but I could clearly see them cocking twenty-second century handguns. Small enough to be easily concealed. Deadly.

At Acton’s order, the men began to cross the creek. The fastest one was already halfway across the clearing, raising his weapon to shoot, but I was ready, my instincts for hand-to-hand combat kicking in even so many years after formal training. I ran toward him at full speed, startling him, ducking and weaving to make myself a difficult target as I approached. Dropping and rolling to avoid the first shot, I came up behind him and held my sword tight against his throat. He was shorter than I, and I held him easily despite his struggling. I plucked the gun out of his hands and hurled it behind me into the brush, turning him so the others could see his face.

“Throw down your weapons now, _or I slit his throat_!” I bellowed. 

The advancing group halted at once, but at a nod from Acton, a man I recognized as Wythe raised his arm and shot my captive squarely in the chest. The bullet caught me under my raised arm as it exited. I cried out sharply and let the man’s body fall as the projectile tore through the flesh at my side. But I was lucky; it hadn’t gone deep. And I didn’t have time to give it any further consideration, in any case. Another of the men was now close enough to shoot me almost point-blank, and I lunged. His twenty-second century brain must not have even registered the legitimate threat posed by the blade in my hands. He went down with a look of deep confusion. 

For a split-second, I was distracted by something darting quickly just at the margins of my vision. It shimmered brightly like silver, which I thought odd, given the light. The next moment, though, Acton himself was just a few yards away. I barely had time to register that _the hand he was raising held no weapon._ I dropped my sword and summoned the light to my hands just in time to collide with his _own_  matching wall of blood-red scarlet flame.

Even through the immense shock— _so I wasn’t the only one after all_ —it was obvious he had far greater control than me. He wielded the deadly energy with such power and ease, whereas I was shaking, bracing with all my might to withstand him. He was forcing me back, my protective red field getting thinner and weaker with every step.  

He was mere inches away from my face, now. I could feel strands of my hair singeing away in the joined fields of heat locked between us. But when he spoke, it was with that same detachment. No cruel laugh. Just the statement of cold fact. 

“Your mother, too. For mercy’s sake.”

_Mercy?_

Fear and instinct and determination had driven me to this point. But now I felt the sick, uncontrolled rage filling me, the sensation of molten rock flooding through my body, blazing inexorably outward. Acton grunted, staggered a step backward, now having to strain just as hard as I was.

There were other sounds around us in the clearing, but I was aware of them only dimly, as though they were playing out behind glass. Shouts. Shots. A _whoosh_ of movement so startlingly close behind me I could feel the displacement of air; but I couldn’t afford to look away for even one moment. Acton had, though, staring wide-eyed at something over my shoulder.

Seizing on his momentary distraction, I summoned all the fury I possessed— _For the Frasers. For Ollie_ —and with a banshee scream, _detonated_. The colossal shockwave tore through him and through the clearing with a blinding flash and a _boom_ that seemed to emanate from my very core.

* * *

_**It can only have taken a few seconds, but I remember every one of them, frame by frame.** _

As Acton fell—dead before he hit the ground—I dropped, landing painfully on my injured side, but I didn’t move. My body had been temporarily leeched of all its force in the blast. I lay, inert. My ears rang. Couldn’t even raise my head. Blinked once: felt the heavy lids flick closed—a single _lub-dub_ of my heart—and back open.

Raymond was kneeling before me. _Shimmering._

There were tear tracks down both cheeks. I gave a strangled gasp and tried vainly to push myself up, but he stayed me with a raised hand. 

The sound of his voice was strange: tinny, echoing. But the tone was smooth and _oh, so very known to me_ : the same that had lulled me to sleep countless times, sonorously warding off the return of nightmares.

 

_I tried to get through the stones to you, but they are blocked._

_They were free agents. No more are coming, I will see to it._

_Oliver is safe._

_I’m sorry…for everything._

_I love you,_ mon oisillon.

 

Then he disappeared. _Vanished before my eyes._

I stared at the empty air.

_Oliver is safe._

_“Thank you, Raymond_ ,” I whispered hoarsely through my tears against the sandy grass. Hoping he could still hear me. Wherever he was.  

* * *

**A sound behind me snapped my body reflexively back into action.** The panicked realization that that I had completely forgotten about the three other combatants coursed through me in a surge of adrenaline, and I came to my feet teeth bared and knife in hand.

_Dark hair over narrow, elegant shoulders. Pale. Shorter than me, but not by much. Slender. Golden eyes wide and shining in the firelight._

**She said the word again.**

**“ _Faith_?”**


	13. Faith

**Providence, that’s what it had been** , that I had thought to have Jocasta send to Philadelphia for a set of acupuncture needles along with Bree’s paints. The little golden things had been neither inexpensive nor easy to come by, the procurer had said, but to me they were no frivolous purchase. _If we were to live near the coast indefinitely_ , my pragmatic mind had insisted, _we damn well better be able to set foot on boats_. Jamie wouldn’t have allowed anything to stop him undertaking this journey, let alone something as transient (well, transient for _normal_ human beings) as seasickness. But it was no small blessing that he was reclining serenely against the half-wall of the rail rather than heaving over it. In fact, _I_ was the one in a state of agitation.

“ _Sassenach_ ,” his voice came through the lamplit darkness, low and sleepy. “Willya stop pacing about and come get some sleep?”

I had indeed been walking the deck for the last several hours as evening turned to night. My feet ached and my mind was weary, but I cast a hot glare in his direction, hackles raised. “This is our _child_ , Jamie, in danger, and you’re just _lying_ there, not even worried—”

“Claire.”

The word wasn’t loud, wasn’t angry, but it stilled me at once. His eyes were heavy as I turned to face him. “Can ye truly believe that I’m no’ tormented by all the same thoughts you are tonight?”

I gripped the rail, hard. “No,” I whispered to the stars.

“Every hope…and every fear.” He spoke so quietly that I had to strain to hear him. “That we’ll come too late. That she’ll be taken from us again. That her death will be on my conscience a second time over. That she’ll die without even knowing that we…”

He swallowed. I swallowed.

“But ye ken verra well there’s naught that we can do about it until we land on Ocracoke, and that nearly a day away….and so we shall sleep. So that we will be fit and rested when the time comes to do what we must.”

With a shudder and a prayer, I pulled my shawl around my shoulders against the cold of the night (so startling after the oppressive heat of the day) and crossed the narrow deck to join him.

It was a tiny supply vessel, perhaps eighty feet from prow to stern, bringing grain and dry goods from Wilmington to the inhabitants of the island. Jamie had made something of a nest amid the sacks of flour and grain, even having procured a blanket from somewhere or other. As I knelt to sit beside him, he caught my hand and pulled me instead into the space between his raised knees. All trace of anger vanished as I felt the urgency of his touch, how it ran like a current beneath his skin. The _need_ , not for sex, but simply for closeness, the reassurance of our bodies and hearts together. I melted into him, resting my head against his chest as he brought both blanket and arms around me. We were silent for a long time. Holding each other in our little pocket of warmth. Listening to the slapping of the waves against the hull; the sounds of one another’s breathing.

It was he that broke the stillness at last. “I _am_ terrified, Claire. So terrified I feel as if my guts will fall right out of me.”

“Me too,” I whispered.

“But is it strange that I should also feel… _proud_?”

I tilted my head back in silent inquiry.

“ _Greater love hath no man than this_ ,” he quoted, staring straight ahead, “ _that a man lay down his life for his friends_.”

My throat felt thick. “And _friends_ she’s never met, no less.”

“Aye. That’s it,” he said, slowly rubbing my back and leaning his cheek against my head. “She’s brave…our Faith.”

“She’s like you. Like her father.”

I could feel him smile, “I cannae wait to meet her.” And like an axe had fallen, the crushing weight of this statement felled us in one fell blow of dread. _Please, Lord. Please let us reach her in time._

Jamie inhaled, rubbing my arm briskly, taking care to adopt a light, cheerful tone. “She’ll be no small bit like you as well, my _Sassenach_. A healer, didn’t the lad say?”

“Yes… Of a sort.”

Roger had imparted to me as much as possible in the short time we had had this…God, _this_ _afternoon_? Had it been no more than half a day since Roger Wakefield had ridden into Wilmington and our world had turned upside down? He’d told me of how she’d run from Raymond. Her ties and time in the 21st century. How she’d tried to search for us in 1969 and had met Bree (just imagine them together!). We had had time only for these very basic contours of her story, for within an hour of his arrival, we were boarding the vessel on which Jamie had arranged passage. Roger would be halfway to Cross Creek by the time we landed in Ocracoke.

“ _If these ‘assassins’ have somehow already gotten past her, they’ll have quickly learned of our connections with River Run_ ,” Jamie had said as he knelt by the gangplank to inspect the haversacks of food and supplies I had hastily pulled together. “ _And if that’s so,_ Sasssenach _, we cannae have Brianna and Ian caught unawares and unprotected_.”

I had been arguing against the idea of sending Roger away, ostensibly because we would need all the manpower we could muster. The real reason, though, was the thought of Brianna learning of the existence of her sister from _Roger_ rather than from Jamie and me. Would she feel it as a betrayal, that we had kept this truth from her? I had thought many times about telling her, scripted in my mind how I might begin to explain. But the moment had never seemed right for it, and now…

But Jamie was right. We had to plan for as many possibilities as could be, even the one in which we would arrive on Ocracoke too late. I nodded my assent.

“ _Mr. Wakefield_ ,” he had promptly called out as he straightened, his sudden movement making Roger stand to attention at the base of the gangplank as Jamie descended.  “ _We owe ye our lives and those of our family already, and I am greatly in your debt. But I must beg ye one more service: to ride at once for Cross Creek and protect my daughter and nephew, if it comes to it. Will ye do this thing?_ ” He had held out a long, sharp dirk to Roger, hilt first.

Roger had taken the proffered blade, eyes shining. “ _Yes, sir. I swear it. With my life_.” The gravity of the situation notwithstanding, I think Roger couldn’t have been happier to be given this charge. A chance to prove oneself a man to the rather imposing father of one’s beloved is no small gift of fate. We would rejoin Roger at River Run, afterward…whatever the outcome on Ocracoke.  

I shifted uneasily in Jamie’s arms. His mention of Faith’s healing abilities had raised a niggling unease in the back of my mind. “Jamie… These… _abilities_ that she has..that Roger told us of. They’re the same that Raymond was tried for on counts of sorcery. Will you… would you be able to…” It’s not a question I thought I’d ever have to ask in my life: _If our daughter is what would be justifiably considered a_ witch _in most times of human history, including my own, will you—staunch Catholic that you are, my darling—be able to accept her?_

Thankfully I didn’t have to say it aloud. Jamie twirled one of my curls between his fingers, speaking thoughtfully, “It’s the same ability that Raymond used to save you, aye? From the fever, after Faith was born?”

“Yes, it sounds like it. Though I never knew of this red kind. The harmful one.”

“Well then, I have this power to thank for your life. And hers. If some call it witchcraft, so be it, but I say it is a gift from God, and I shall bless his name every day for it.  And as she uses it for good, as she did to heal Brianna, then I consider her doubly blessed in it.”

I relaxed once more against his chest. I had been almost certain of such an answer, but one always wonders, in this time. “And what do you think Fergus thought? Will he be alright, do you think?  

“Aye, I think he’ll come ‘round.”

We had had to tell Fergus everything. As much as Jamie and I both would have liked to have avoided this necessity, the reality was that _I_ was hardly going to be an asset if it came down to hand-to-hand combat. Hook or not, Fergus was a fierce fighter, and we needed him, for Jamie alone against an unknown number of assassins would surely not be sufficient. And so, we told him about me, and about the stones; where I (not to mention Bree) had really been in the twenty years following Culloden; about Faith and her miraculous survival. He had listened to it all, stone faced. He had barely said a word since, in fact; just sat staring out at the water from his vantage point near the prow. I could hardly blame him. As unusually canny and worldly-wise as Fergus was in many areas of life (including piracy and the inner workings of pleasure houses), the concept of time travel was no small pill to swallow, I supposed.

I adjusted in Jamie’s arms once more, readying for sleep, feeling the crinkle of paper in my pocket. A wave of fear gripped me at thought of the words. I’d memorized them all, by now, but those several sentences haunted me.  

> _I think I can stop them at the stones, but I don’t know how many are coming. If they succeed in killing me, or if there are too many for me to take…_

“Jamie,” I whispered, “If we… If she doesn’t make it…”

He wrapped his arms more tightly around me, his own voice hoarse and thin.“Sleep, now, _mo ghraidh_. Sleep for Faith.”

* * *

**The final approach to the shore seemed to take an age**. The sun had long since set on the second day of our passage, but Fergus, Jamie, and I were wide awake and strung tight as bowstrings, packs and weapons held at the ready. The rudiments of my medicine kit were packed into a leather bag slung around my shoulder. Bandages, simple salve, a needle and thread. _Lord, please make it so I won’t need them._

“Is this the right spot?” Jamie demanded sharply of the captain as we approached a rather pitiful-looking dock.

“This be the closest moorin’ point,” the surly captain grunted in return. “Too shallow any further up. Them big rocks’ll be a little more’n a mile that way. Follow the creek.”

We didn’t even wait for the boat to tie off or for the sluggish crew to lower the gangplank. We leapt over the railings onto the dock and ran as fast as we could into the scrub pine forest. We found and followed the indicated stream, dodging the patches of boggy quicksand that seemed to crop up around every bend. Fergus and Jamie outstripped me after a while, their long limbs and men’s clothing giving them a distinct advantage. But I sprinted as fast as I could, nonetheless. The moonlight through the trees gave the landscape a nightmarish quality that did nothing to quell my pounding heart

_Then I heard the screaming._

I rounded a final bend in the creek and nearly slammed into one of them. Four stones bisected by the creek, glowing with a deep red light. In another circumstance I would have marveled at this, but I had scarcely a moment to spare for the stones, given the hell that was unfolding in the adjacent clearing. Jamie and Fergus were engaged in hand-to-hand combat with three men. I heard Fergus cry out as a shot rang out, and saw him stumble, but he took the assailant down with him with a swing of his hatchet. And simultaneously, my eyes were drawn to the spot behind them where a fourth man was locked in conflict with a dark-haired woman.

_Jesus Christ._

I couldn’t see her face, but she was tall, her long limbs accentuated by the men’s breeks she wore. She and the fourth man seemed to be surrounded by red electricity. It was indeed like the blue light I’d seen, but more vibrant, more volatile. Jamie and Fergus had dispatched two of the men by now, but the third was coming up behind Faith, a handgun pointed at the back of her head. I opened my mouth to scream, but Jamie reached her in just in time, breaking the man’s arm and cutting him down with one vicious stroke. I saw him turn and with a look like death over her turned shoulder, took a step toward the last man, sword raised.  A second later it was as though a bomb had gone off. A blinding red flash, and a shockwave that blew both the man and Jamie backward off their feet. Jamie flew back at least twenty feet landing hard.

Time seemed to fragment. The images flashed before my eyes in strobe. My ears were ringing so loudly I couldn’t even hear my steps as I ran to Jamie or my own voice as I frantically called his name.

_Fine_ , he mouthed as he laboriously pushed himself onto hands and knees. _I’m_. _Fine_. 

I looked wildly around the clearing. Fergus was slumped against a tree. All four of the strange men were down; the last one must have been taken out by the blast. And lying there beside him…

_No….please no_ , my wailing heart begged. She wasn’t moving.

I was starting to hear sounds again. “ _Go to her_ ,” Jamie was yelling into my face as he shook my shoulders hard. “I’ll see to Fergus. _Go to her_ , Claire!”

Every stumbling footfall jarred violently upward through my joints and spine, battering my brain with the accusation: t _oo late…too late…you’re too late_. My eyes were streaming, but even from thirty feet away I could see the fresh blood glistening bright against the back of her shirt where it met the ground. “ _FAITH_!” I screamed in cracking despair. I thought my heart would stop entirely when— _with shocking speed and grace_ —she rose and whirled into a warrior’s crouch, a long knife held overhand. I stopped short, gasping from equal parts desperate relief and desperate fear, for she had the genuinely wild look of a dog about to lunge for the kill. Would she slit my throat before I even had the chance to speak to her?

“ _Faith_?” I said again, trembling, pleading. I raised both hands to show I was unarmed, but the knife was already falling to the ground. She was staring at me in stricken horror, as though at some fabled beast not meant to exist. I stared back, equally transfixed. It was like looking in a mirror, twenty years ago. The same brow. The same nose. She’d been crying, and she was clearly straining against considerable fatigue, but even in the moonlit darkness, the creamy skin glowed with life; thick, dark curls framed the face, at once fierce and delicate.

_You’re perfect._

From the corner of my eye, I could see Jamie crouching beside Fergus, helping him sit up. He was alright. We had _all_ made it through alright, then, but I couldn’t move. Blood pounded in my ears. I could scarcely breathe. How many times had I dreamed of this moment over the last year? Dreamed of taking this child into my arms? Of opening my heart to her? And now, I could only stand like stone, anxiety paralyzing my every muscle.  

_Just start. Just speak._

“Do… _do you know who I am_?” My voice didn’t sound familiar. It was too high, too strained. I hastily pawed the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to regain some kind of composure.

Slowly, eyes wide, she nodded. Her hands were clenched into fists, drawn subconsciously up to her breast. For a moment, it was like looking at Bree, clutching her favorite lavender lovie to her chest during a thunderstorm. So small and young. So _scared_. With a jolt, I remembered the blood, and I could now see the wound’s origin in her side near the bottommost rib. “You’re _hurt_ ,” I said, moving forward in alarm to inspect it, fearing injury to a kidney or the tip of the liver.

She started, stretched out her hands in reflex, and speaking very loudly and rapidly, “No! No, it’s nothing, really!”

Once again, I stopped short, mind racing. Did she not want me to come closer? Not want me to touch her? _Slow down, Beauchamp. Don’t overwhelm her. Be still._

But she looked distressed. “I didn’t mean—that is…you can…” Clearly things were not going as smoothly as _she_ intended, either. 

Our eyes met and we both gave little nervous laughs. Seeing her shy, encouraging nod, I resumed my approach, slower this time, gesturing to her side, “You’re _quite sure_ it doesn’t need medical attention?”

“Barely a scratch, I promise,” she said, with a small smile. “The blood makes it look terrible but it isn’t at all deep. It will heal quickly.” Her accent was strange. French, at first blush, but not quite.

I was right in front of her now. Tentatively, I raised my hand, my voice a faint whisper, “May I?”  Eyes wide and mouth set anxiously, she nodded.

Slowly, gently, dry-eyed, I placed my palm against her cheek, gasping at the startling warmth of her. The softness. I couldn’t stop myself. I brought my other hand up too, breathing heavily, tracing the lines of forehead and temple, losing myself in the deep, clear blue that stared back with such wonder and such fear. Yes, it was me, written there, in that face. But it was Jamie, too. And it was Bree. Even Jenny, a bit, with her Fraser eyes and the jet-black hair. She was Fraser, MacKenzie, Moriston, and Beauchamp. She was _ours_. She was _mine_. She was _her own_. I don’t know how long I stood there, with her face in both my hands. Studying her. Drinking her in. I ran my fingertips lightly through her unruly hair, smiling as I tucked the wayward curls behind—

“Oh God,” I wrenched out in a sudden sob, “your _ears_!”

“Wh-what?” she said, jumping slightly at my sudden exclamation.

I ran my thumbs gingerly over the exquisitely soft lobes, down the hot ridges behind where they joined with the scalp, tears beginning to pool in my eyes. “I only held you the one time—” My voice failed me and I had to clear my throat and swallow “—but I remember your sweet little ears. They stuck out, _just a bit._ Just like they do now.” As much as I scolded myself for them, the tears slipped down my cheeks.

“I have always hated them,” she said, with a small, weak laugh.

“ _Oh no_ —I didn’t mean to—” I began hastily, “they’re _beautiful_. It’s just…the last time I…you…” 

An eternal heartbeat passed. 

“Oh, Faith,  _sweetheart_ —” 

And suddenly, I no longer cared if it was too much or too soon. I lurched forward, the barely-checked sobs now overtaking me completely as I pressed her into me as tight as I could. A moment’s hesitation. _A moment only_ , before slender arms circled me hard in return. The warm head of dark curls pressed tightly against mine, and I could feel her shuddering beneath my hands, her tears falling against my neck as we swayed violently in the firelight.

I had broken wide open, the sounds of mingled joy, relief, love, and remembered trauma and grief escaping from me as they willed. I said her name over and over as I ran my hands over her back, her head, her arms, her shoulders. She was real. _Not_ dead. Not _gone_. Not buried beneath white marble at the Hopital. _Here_ , living and breathing and weeping in my arms. _My baby. My Faith_.

“If I had had… _any_ doubt… _any_ notion that you could have lived—” the words cut off in my throat.

“—I know,” she sobbed back, clinging to me, “I _do_ , you couldn’t have known.”

I burrowed into her, as she into me, trying to hold still closer, reach deeper. A deeply animal instinct seemed to overtake my consciousness. I needed to gather her up and carry her  someplace safe—a cave, a nest—and cover her with my body. Keep her warm, protect her. My fingers shook, _claws_ , ready to rip out the throat of anything that dared try to take her from me.  

The human brain sparked again. _Words. Tell her in words_.  I held her away from me by the shoulders, “From the moment…from the moment I first felt you move in me, Faith…” 

Another wave of emotion passed through me at saying the name aloud— _My baby. Not dead. Here._ I laid a kiss at her temple before continuing. 

“…you were my joy. You healed me of—of _so much despair_ … _so much fear._.. I would have…” I gritted my teeth, trying to put my whole soul into the words. “…I would have cut out my own heart to save you, to keep you.” My eyes found his without thinking, my voice ringing with unwavering certainty, “We _both_ would have.”

Having seen that Fergus was in no immediate danger, Jamie had gone to his knees at the edge of the clearing, watching, weeping silently, allowing me the first moments with her alone. But at this cue, he instantly rose and drew forward, streaming eyes alight with the almost-reverent hunger of a castaway, someone who has all but forgotten what real food—real satiety—could be like. I turned Faith to face him, squeezing her shoulder as I pushed her gently forward. But the “ _Oh, my love_ ,” that escaped unbidden from my lips was for _him_ , the cry of my heart breaking and mending simultaneously as I passed our firstborn child to him.

I hadn’t witnessed Jamie’s first meeting with Brianna; and in a way, I was glad of it. That moment and that memory belonged to them, the first forgings of a bond that was theirs alone. But to see the look on Jamie’s face now as he fully took in the sight of a _second_ daughter he’d thought never to lay eyes on in life… I gasped and stepped back a distance, holding my hands tight over my mouth to keep from disrupting this scene of utter beauty and delight.

He had her face in his hands, now, apparently fulfilling the same urge I had had to _absorb_ her. To take notice of every pore and feature one by one. She was drinking him in, too, running her fingers across the rasping stubble at his jaw. He was kissing her forehead, saying, “ _You are precious to me, child_ ,” so enthralled in her that I didn’t think he realized he’d spoken in Gaelic. He was as flabbergasted as I, then, to hear her respond, tentatively, in something sounding highly like the same language. I couldn’t understand the words, but the look of surpassing joy on Jamie’s face in the hearing of them smote me to the quick.  

She was in his arms, then. Her back was to me, but I could see Jamie’s face. Could see his big, worn hand cupping her head fiercely against his shoulder, his lips murmuring love into the dark curls as she wept into the crook of his neck. Could see decades of grief and longing and guilt washing over him. No…washing _off_ of him.

A long time later, he unfolded one arm, holding out a silent hand to me. I approached, and wrapped my arm around his waist, leaning my head against his shoulder. To feel him. To look at her. _My baby. Not gone. Here_. Suddenly sensing me there so close, though, Faith started, and, as if jolted out of a trance, stumbled back from us several yards. She couldn’t bring herself to meet our eyes now, her gaze darting around our feet as she gasped out, “I'm— _I’m so_ — I’m so sorry— _so sorry_!”  

“ _Sorry_?” I said, alarmed, taking a step toward her, “Whatever is there to be sorry for?”

She was clearly extremely agitated, her words coming fast in a kind of frantic desolation, “I didn’t mean for— _I just wanted to meet you_ —you shouldn’t have come, you could have been—if anything had happened to— _just wanted to meet you_ —”

Jamie stepped forward, too “We are safe _because of you_ , lass. Me, your mother, your sister—”

“But if I— _if I hadn’t come looking_ —” She had stepped back again to stay out of his reach. Her neck was craned as though she was about to be sick, her hand clutched over a golden pendant hanging around it from a chain. She was close to hyperventilating. “—I didn’t mean for anything to happen—not to upturn your lives— _I just wanted to meet you_ —that was enough— _c’était tout_ — _je vous promets_ —wanted—so sorry—I didn’t mean— _je ne_ —”

Jamie moved boldly forward now, and before she could move away again, took both her hands firmly in his own. “We’ve wanted to meet _you_ , too, _a leannan_ , ever since we learned that ye had lived. And we _never_ stopped loving ye, Faith, not in all these twenty-three years. Knowing where ye were, nothing would have kept us away. _Nothing_.” He placed a kiss in each shaking palm and pressed them to his heart. “But _you’re_ _wrong_. It _isnae_ enough,” he said, teeth gritted and tears dropping onto their joined hands as as he shook his head violently. “For us, it couldnae ever be enough only to meet ye. _Ever_.”

I drew close, adding my hand to cover theirs and bringing the other to rest on her quaking shoulders. Her head was hung between them, and she shaking her head in anticipation of the rebuttal she was trying to gulp out. Jamie brought one large hand up to her neck, tilting her face gently up to meet his eye.

“You are _ours_ , Faith. _Our daughter_ ,” Jamie said, his voice so low and so tender I thought my heart would break. “Blood of our blood … bone of our bone. And no matter where ye go in life, we’re yours. _Tu me comprends_?  _Completely_. In whatever way ye’ll have us.”

She broke, then, the last of her barriers melting away between our feet. I felt her knees begin to give out, and I sunk to the ground with her, cradling her against my chest. I held her there, gave her my body. Felt her heart. Her every tiny movement. And Jamie was there, his arms warm and strong around us. Keeping us safe. 

**Just the three of us.**


	14. Abri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

**“Are you alright, sweetheart?”**

She started at the sound of my voice, but quickly recovered, glancing up from the fire with a wan smile. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

_She wasn’t._

Our reunion back in the clearing by the stones had been long and slow; sweet and deep. It had been everything. _Meant_ everything, to all of us.

But the instant we had peeled ourselves off the ground, reality had descended in the form of Faith tripping and coming face-to-face with one of the dead men. She had vomited, then staggered to her feet, shaking like a leaf and staring wildly from one corpse to the next, to the next. She must never have seen a dead body before. And here, in the course of one night, she had personally killed at least two of the seven that littered the clearing. The precise details were as yet still unclear, but it hardly seemed the time to push for them. The euphoria of our reunion aside, Faith had gone through a harrowing battle that very nearly cost her her life, and trauma does not vanish quickly from one’s memory. Jamie and I had cause to know.

Jamie had taken her into his arms, speaking loudly and firmly to reach her through her panic,“ _Ye did_ well _, lass… Ye did what ye came to do….We’re all safe….You’re no’ alone…Ye dinna have anything more to fear tonight… Ye did well…_ ”

He met my eye over the top of her head. “ _You two should go now. Follow the creek back down to the shore. There was a sheltered cove not far from the wee dock. If ye can get a fire started for us, we shall make camp there for the night._ ”

“ _And you_?” I said, rubbing Faith’s back as she stepped back from Jamie, drawing in deep, stertorous breaths and wiping her eyes clumsily. “W _hat will you do?_ ”

“ _Find Fergus, to start. We’ll join ye once we’ve… taken care of things here_.” Once they’d buried the bodies, he meant. It was almost a shame. Variously hacked by sword or hatchet blow, or shriveled and blackened as if engulfed by fire, the bodies would have been a _bloody_ good warning for other would-be assassins: _don’t trifle with angry Frasers_.

 _God_ , I thought, remembering the carnage and watching her, curled in on herself and staring blankly into the fire, _small wonder she was still shaken_. I’d encouraged her to change out of her bloody clothes even before the fire was lit, and to wash as best she could in the creek. To purge as many of the sensory vestiges of the night as possible. The bullet wound in her side had vanished before I’d even had a chance to inspect it. My curiosity had been piqued, but I had tucked it away for later, along with so many other burning questions. We had all the time in the world to learn about each other. For now, she needed rest.

As I watched her, tender concern suddenly transmuted into a deep, clenching ache of anxiety. She was no more than ten feet from me, but I couldn’t shake the sense of impending danger, the irrational fear that something would come in the night and snatch her away from me. I forced myself to lay still for a time, but my insides churned so wildly in silent anxiety that I couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Faith, can I… would you be willing to…to sleep near me?” I cringed the instant It left my lips. _She’s a grown woman, for Christ’s sake; you’re treating her like a child._

But she was already halfway over to me by the time I’d started to stammer out more explanation. I felt a lump rise in my throat when she settled not _near_ me, but _against_ me, letting me wrap my arms around her. I blinked back the moisture that had sprung to my eyes, and sighed in relief as I reveled in the solid warmth of her in my arms, “ _Thank you,_ sweetheart…It’s silly, I know, but–”

“It _isn’t_ ,” she said, softly, but with no hesitation, nestling her head in the crook of my shoulder. “We both need it tonight… _un abri._ ”

 _A shelter. A place where one is safe_. I gently cradled her against me, spreading my hands wide, trying to transmit to her as much peace as her touch was bringing to me. A memory flickered.

“When your father and I married, you know, we were practically strangers. I didn’t even learn his real name until a few minutes before the vows. But in those days afterward, we found that as long as we were touching in some way, all the nerves and fears and doubts went away. Even the ones of one another.”

She brought her arm up to rest across my middle and squeezed lightly. I stroked her hair, resting my lips against her forehead. Feeling the contour of one soft protuberance under the curly mane, I smiled. “Have you really always hated your ears?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “There was a little boy in the village when I was about 5 or 6 who teased me for them and called me _Fae the monkey_. The words rhymed in his language, and it took me _years_ to get away from that nickname!”

“‘ _Faye_?’” I said, craning my neck to look at her in puzzlement.

“What?” She looked puzzled, too. Then comprehension dawned, “Yes, _Fae_. F-a-e. That is what Raymond always called me. Short for ‘Faith’, I suppose, though I never knew it wasn’t my real name. Not until…” She suddenly jerked and sat halfway up. Even in the glow of the fire, I could see she was blushing. “I’m sorry, I–I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

Clearly I must have reacted to the name. I looked down and saw that my hands had clenched into fists subconsciously at mention of him. But I chose to ignore my anger, taking care to keep my face and voice light, rolling the word on my tongue. “ _Fae_. Its pretty! A nose for irony, though, Raymond, hasn’t he?’”

She laughed, sitting all the way up to adjust her blanket more snugly around her shoulders. “Yes, it was always quite a conversation-starter. Every traveler has a story about being mistaken for a fairy or the like.”

“ _I could write a book_ ,” I said, dryly. But a thought had just occurred to me, and I touched her shoulder anxiously, “Does it bother you for us to call you ‘Faith,’ sweetheart? I’m terribly sorry, we should never have assumed…If you’d prefer, we can —”

“Oh, no!” she said, earnestly, “It doesn’t bother me, not at all! I’ll answer to either name, but I _like_ to hear it. _Faith_.” She smiled genuinely back at me, eyes sparkling. I’d always wanted blue eyes when I was younger. Now, I could see a good approximation of the completed look. And _God_ , it _was_ breathtaking.

But all at once, her smile went slack. She paused a moment before meeting my eye, voice small. “I am not sure what I should call you.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but then closed it. _I wasn’t sure either_. To Bree, I was _Mama_. To Marsali, _Mother Claire_. I certainly couldn’t conscience her calling me _Milady_ or _Madame_ as Fergus insisted upon. Deciding, I patted her arm reassuringly. “You should call me whatever feels natural to you, darling. _Claire_ will do, if nothing else suits.”

She nodded, swaying precariously on her propped hand. Her eyelids were drooping so heavily, I thought she would fall asleep the next second. I coaxed her to lie down again, and she curled snugly against me. My shoulder and arm, trapped beneath her weight, quickly went to pins and needles, but I didn’t care. It was a pittance compared to the joy of having this person, this daughter, alive and here in my arms.

I just barely caught it, right before I slipped under into hazy dreams. A soft, warm whisper on the night air.

_**“Maman.”** _


	15. The Weight of a Debt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

I woke at dawn, _Maman_ ’s arms still about me. Very slowly, I extricated myself, and managed to sit up without waking her. Jamie lay on her other side, curled around her spoon-fashion. _Papa._ His arm was draped over her hip, but I noticed the hand unnaturally splayed out on the ground beside her. Had it been holding me, too?

Pulling my blanket closer around my shoulders, I sat, cross-legged, watching my parents sleep in the hazy clay-blue light of early morning. I hadn’t had the chance last night to take much notice of them _together_. At first meeting, my full attention had been for each of them individually, soaking her in, then him; then had been lost in the state of relief and overwhelming grace of all three of us being together, crying on the clearing floor. But as I watched them now, his chin nuzzled into the curve of her neck and shoulder, her hips tucked securely against his, Raymond’s voice came back to me: _a bonded pair such as I have seldom encountered._

And they love _me_.

_I love you, too._

Resisting a strong urge to touch them, I left them in peace, rising silently and walking into the brushy forest to relieve myself. On impulse, I walked out onto the small beach. The sound was still, this morning. The tiny wavelets lapping against the sand were barely more than a murmur over the sounds of the birds and frogs.

“ _Milady?_ ”

I started and turned. A dark-haired man, very handsome and tall, was standing in the sand twenty or so feet behind me. He made an elegant bow, realization dawning as I caught the glint of sunlight off the hook.

“You’re Fergus,” I said, a little breathlessly.

He gave a shy smile. “ _Oui, bien sûr_.”

“They didn't mention you were _French_!” I replied, falling delightedly into my native language.

“Well, don’t fault them too strongly, it _was_ a busy evening.” We laughed, and I decided that I liked Fergus. He had a kind of charming ease that reminded me of Oliver. He gestured to the bundle in his hand. “I brought food. Will you join me, Milady?”

“Yes, thank you!” I said, pleased, sitting down with him on one of the tiny dunes. “But only if you call me _Faith_. I’ve never been a lady.”

He gave a contemplative kind of laugh as he passed me cheese and dried fruit. “No, but your mother has. And you look very much like her. How she looked when I first knew her.”

“You have been with them for a long time, haven't you?” I said, enjoying the sharpness of the fresh cheese after weeks of stale bread on the road.

“Yes. Since I was ten years old. Milord plucked me out of a Paris brothel and I have been with him and his family ever since.” He looked away suddenly, crumbling a rind between his fingers absently. “They have been everything to me. I _owe_ them everything.”

We talked over our breakfast, chatting of Paris and Scotland. Of my aunt and uncle and cousins, and his many years with them at Lallybroch. I was halfway through telling him a story from my own childhood, when I happened to glance over at him. It was a funny story, but the look with which he was fixing me was one of such raw pain that I gave a little involuntary gasp. His thick brows were furrowed, and he was clearly straining to hold back tears. I could see his lips quivering as he struggled to keep them still.

“Fergus,” I said, setting down the food and putting a hand on his knee in concern. “What is the matter? Are you hurt? _Maman_ said that you—”

He stood up suddenly and walked to the water’s edge. His back was turned, but I could see him wiping tears away with his sleeve. He was taking deep, gasping breaths, trying to get his emotions under control.

I stood and walked up behind him. “Fergus,” I said gently, “ _tell me._ ”

“It was because of me,” he said quietly. 

At a loss, I could only say, “ _What_ was?”

“That you...died. Well—” He made a vague gesture, equivocating. I was stunned, and couldn't have managed another word even if I’d tried.

“I was there during the pregnancy,” he went on, not meeting my eye. “The miscarriage—it happened during a duel that Milord fought for my honor...You can't know how often I've thought about you over the year. Prayed for you. Prayed for your forgiveness.”

“Fergus,” I began, finding my voice, completely shocked by this, “there is absolutely nothing to forgive. Miscarriage can happen any—”

“I know. _I know_ ,” he said, cutting me off and squeezing his eyes shut as if in concentration. “But still… Without me, maybe Madame would have been nearer to the hospital when it happened. And Milord would have been there with her to provide comfort, at least. As it was…”

He trailed off. Then, as smoothly and gracefully as a communicant, he went to his knees in front of me and took both my hands in his one. His big dark eyes bored up into mine. “The fact remains that because they took me into their lives, they lost twenty years with you. Their _real_ child. _And it was not a fair trade_.” He kissed my hands slowly, leaning his forehead against them. “And I shall try to repay you all for—”

I grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him sharply to his feet, startling him. “You _won't_ ,” I said, firmly, commandingly. “Do you know why?”

He looked up, eyes wounded, waiting.

“Last night, there were too many men for me to take. It's the simple fact. They'd have gotten me for sure if you and _Papa_ hadn't arrived just then. You _saved_ me, Fergus; saved me so I could be restored to them.” I brought his good hand up to my face, holding it there as I mirrored the action, feeling the strong lines of his jaw as I gave him a little shake. “If you’ve _truly_ carried the weight of a debt, _consider it paid_...you fought for me and _won_.”

He hung his head and I hugged him, both touched and heartbroken over his pain. He hugged me back, giving in to his tears now.  “ _Chère_ Faith,” he said huskily, “ _m_ a _petite_.”

A pang hollowed my stomach at the endearment. One of Raymond's favorites for me as a child. I swallowed before squeezing Fergus, eyes wet, needing to give him one more grain of peace, as Roger had given it to me.

“...and the fact that they didn't give birth to you doesn't mean you’re not their real child.”

 

* * *

 

Jamie was standing at the edge of camp, looking out to the water. I moved close, wrapping my arms contentedly around his waist. We watched them, sitting side by side on the beach, conversing rapidly in their native language.

“Faith and Fergus,” I said, wistfully, leaning my head against his shoulder. “Just think: in another world, they would have known each other their entire lives...”

I could just imagine wee Fergus as I had known him so long ago, bright eyes and that sweet face, so devious and so innocent at the same time.  Could see him chasing protectively after a dark-haired toddler. Reading to her. Showing her how best to steal treats from Ms. Crook. Watching over her as she grew up, became a woman.

My throat was tight, and I released a burst of air that wasn't quite a sob. “He’d have been wonderful as a big brother, wouldn’t he?”

“Aye, he _was_ one,” Jamie agreed. “He would’ve given his life for Jenny and Ian’s weans. After he’d pestered them all to death first, of course... _What in God's name—_?”

Fergus had knelt suddenly in front of Faith on both knees, head bowed over her hands, which he held tight in his own.  

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked, struggling to make out the rapid French over the wind.

“Aye,” said Jamie after a moment, suddenly quiet. “He’s begging her forgiveness.”

“Whatever for?”

“For having caused her apparent death.”

“Ohhh…. _Fergus_ ,” I breathed.  

It hadn’t been just Jamie and me, then, that had carried the weight of guilt over Faith’s loss for so many years. Nor had the novelty of time travel been the sole reason behind his pale, stoic silence on the ship from Wilmington. I wanted to snatch the little boy that once was into my arms, to hold him and rock him and tell him all was well.

As it was, Fergus the man already had his comfort. Faith had raised him back to his feet, spoken fervently, and then embraced him. He squeezed her hard in return, wiping away tears with the sleeve of his hooked hand.

Jamie kissed my hair, and wiped a tear from my own cheek. “Dinna fash, _mo nighean donn_.  She’ll have a brother to look out for her _now_.”


	16. Pupils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

“ _Nineteen_! And here I was thinking that _I_ was the master of languages in this family.”

“How many do you speak, _Papa_?”

“Oh, nine or ten by last count. But _Lord_ , ye’ve got me nearly doubly beat!”

It was mid-afternoon, another scorching one. The broad sun beat down upon the four of them as they made their way up the crude coastal path toward Ocracoke's tiny port. Fergus walked slightly behind, less talkative than usual due to a headache.

“Wait, I forgot about Korean!” Faith exclaimed. “That makes it an even _twenty_!”

“Quor-ee-um? What's that, then, lass?”

Claire laughed, gently correcting her husband. “Koreannn. The language of Korea.”

“ _You_ ken the place, _Sassenach_?”

“Indeed I do! That is, I've never been there myself, but I know it's a small country between China and Japan. The Americans fought a war there when Bree was small. We treated many of the injured veterans at the hospital over the years.”

“Oh, aye?”  Jamie said, contemplatively. “We kent a Chinese man not long ago. His stories always made that part of the world seem both verra strange and wondrous. Did ye like it there, Faith?”

“It certainly was the strangest place _I've_ ever lived, by far. But that was more due to the time than the setting, I think. I was there in 2570.”

Jamie and Claire both stopped dead, Fergus nearly stumbling into them. Jamie just stared, while Claire uttered a fervent, “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!”

Faith laughed. “I like that one, _Maman_!”

“You've _really_ been to the future?” Claire asked, eyes wide. “I didn't know that was possible! Although, of course, speaking the words out loud, calling anything 'the future' sounds incredibly foolish. You got to the 1960s from _this_ time...”

“But you're not entirely wrong," Faith said, fairly. "It _is_ extremely difficult to push through to the future relative to the time in which one is born. Many cannot. But Raymond and I have done it for so long, now, we have the way of it. Not much stops him, you know.”

Faith said this with an air of fond reminiscence. At Claire’s short, “Mmm,” though, her smile fell, along with a rather awkward silence.

Sensible to the sudden tension and the reasons underlying it, Jamie jumped in with a jovial, “Ye shall have to teach me some of this _Quorian,_  so I can have a chance of catching up wi’ your twenty one day.”

“ _Only_ if you’ll give me some Gaelic lessons,” Faith replied, meeting his eye with a grateful nod. “I didn't even count that one among the twenty, I know so little of it.”

“‘Tis a bargain, _a leannan_. What do ye think, Fergus?” Jamie called over his shoulder. “Can a Frenchie be taught to speak like a native highlander?”

“ _Cannnards._..”

“Ducks? What are ye _—_? _Jesus Christ!_ ” He lunged and caught Fergus just in time to keep him from collapsing onto the rocky path. Fergus’ body was writhing uncontrollably, and Jamie had to struggle with all his might to keep hold of him as they both sunk to the ground. 

Claire fell to her knees beside them, “He’s having a seizure! Quick, we need to something between his teeth so he doesn’t bite his tongue off.” They managed to get Faith’s pencil between the clenched jaws. An agonizing minute passed, Jamie muttering fierce prayers and holding the convulsing body tight against him in the dust. Then Fergus went limp as a fish, breathing normally, but not responding to the questions Claire barked at him.

“Jamie, I thought you said last night that he was _fine_!”

Jamie was nearly as pale as the inert form in his lap. “He _said_ he was...”

“What the hell happened to him at the stones?”

“One of the men hit him hard in the side of the head wi’ the butt of a wee pistol. The lad fell, and seemed a bit _dazed_ when I went over to him...but he stood and walked off on his own _—_ and there wasna any blood that I could see....”

“ _Damn it all_ , he must have been bleeding internally all night.I should have examined him at once!”

“ _Maman, if you—"_

“The blood is pooling between the layers of tissue and putting pressure on the brain. He'll suffer permanent damage if it continues _—_ ”  

“ _But_ _I can—_ ” 

Fergus groaned suddenly, making as if to sit up. 

“Fergus? Fergus, can you hear me?” Claire said quickly, holding his face with both hands so she could examine his eyes. “Fergus, I’m _very_ glad you’re alive, but don’t you _dare_ move an inch, do you hear me? Jamie, hold his head and neck _absolutely still_.”

“Can’t see,” Fergus moaned in clear agony. “My head...breaking open...”

“Is there anything ye can do for him, _Sassenach_?” Jamie said, looking down at Fergus and struggling to keep the panic from his voice.

“ _Maman, you must—”_

“Faith, run into the woods and find some long, strong sticks or limbs. Something we can make into _—_ ”

“ _I CAN HELP HIM_ , _Maman_!”

Claire snapped her head around and stared at her daughter quite blankly for a moment. Then, coming to her senses, she stammered, “Of course...what am I thinking, _of course_ you can.” She quickly rose and stepped back, eyes downcast.

“What do ye need me to do, _a nighean_?” Jamie said urgently, as his daughter took Claire’s place beside him in the dust.

“Keep holding him still, just as _Maman_ said. This won’t take long.” Very carefully, Faith slipped her fingers beneath Jamie’s to cup the base of the skull. Closing her eyes, she set to her work. 

“ _Jesus…_ ” Jamie breathed, as he felt the raw energy against his hand. The pale blue light flicked forth and encircled Fergus’ head like a halo. He groaned, but then released it into a long sigh. A minute later, his eyelids flickered open, his face relaxed into a calm smile.  

There was a collective sigh of relief. Faith brushed the hair off of his forehead. “How does it feel?”

“All better, _petite soeur_. Really, I am healed, Milord. I could run for miles, now.” At a nod from Faith, Jamie loosed his hold, allowing Fergus to hoist himself off the ground.

Healed, he indeed was. Brushing himself off, Fergus all but bounced over to plant a kiss on Faith’s cheek. “Thank you for keeping _Monsieur L’Oeuf_ from being made an orphan. Marsali would have killed me over it, for certain.”

* * *

Fergus and Jamie had led the small band, both in speed and conversation, for the next several hours, cajoling Faith with tales of Lallybroch, pirates, and smuggling. It was early evening before the small town came into sight up the path. 

Claire, uncharacteristically quiet for most of the day, stopped suddenly, allowing the men to continue on as she took her daughter’s hand. “Please forgive me, sweetheart. For all my bluster earlier.”

Faith was genuinely surprised. “There is nothing to forgive. I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that.”

“On the contrary, you _absolutely needed to._ I wouldn't have listened to you otherwise _._ ” She shook her head ruefully. “It sounds utterly pompous to say it aloud, but I’m accustomed to always being the one who has all the ‘supernatural’ expertise. The one who knows damn well what needs doing and doesn’t care who disagrees or calls me a meddling harpy, because they simply don’t know any better.”

Faith laughed at that, but Claire went on. “It’s just become habit to... _shoo_ people off to the side when there’s healing to be done.” She did smile, then. “It’s a different world now, with you here. In more ways than one, I daresay. But I really should have remembered that you had far more to offer Fergus than me. Particularly since I had nothing at all that could have saved him.”

“Do not trouble yourself, _Maman,_ really. It isn’t something I’d have expected you to know.”

“Well, just know that I _am_ sorry. And very grateful. And _very_ proud of you.”

Despite herself, Faith beamed as they began walking again. “I’m very glad I was able to help him. I thought _Papa_ was going to faint. You didn’t seem shocked, though, at the sight of the light.”

“I’d seen it before. After you were born...”

There was another long silence, and Faith’s gut clenched in anxiety. Would it always be like this, when Raymond came up between them? 

She was surprised, then, when Claire said nervously, “Do you…do you think it’s something I could... _learn_? The healing? Could you teach me?”

Faith considered that for a moment. Then, stopping once more, she ignited her purplish aura. Taking her mother’s hand, she sparked Claire’s in kind. Bright blue. _Just like Raymond._

“Can you see them?” she asked. “The lights around us right now?”

“I don't _see_ anything…but I can _feel_ something. A slight vibration.”

Faith nodded. “Just maybe, then. We’ll certainly try.”

Claire beamed, then exhaled with a chuckle as they made to catch up with the men. “You and Jamie should open a school. Korean, Gaelic, and supernatural healing lessons at a fair price: inquire within.”


	17. The Demons Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

**I awoke with strong arms around my shoulders.** “Hush, _m’annsachd_ , _hush_. It’s alright, I've got ye.”

Urgent, muffled voices, followed by, “Go back to sleep, _Sassenach_ , just a nightmare. She’ll be _fine_ , Fergus, dinna fash. Lay yer heads, the both of ye.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured weakly into his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to wake you all.”

“Dinna apologize,” he whispered back, “nightmares take us as they will.” He placed a kiss on my temple before releasing me and rising to his feet. “Since ye’re awake, though, will ye come up on deck wi’ me?”

Taking his hand, I rose and followed him up into the bracing, salt air. It was a clear night. A deckhand greeted us with a cordial tip of the cap. The watchman whistled in the crow’s nest above. “ _God_ , I hate boats,” Jamie said with feeling as a passing wave caused him to stagger into the railing of the quarter deck.

“ _Maman_ said as much,” I said, crossing my arms tight around my chest and trying to remain conversational. “Good thing she has the acupuncture needles.”

“Aye, verra fortunate indeed, else I’d no’ be able to _stand_ , let alone walk. She’s a useful woman to have about, your mother. Still, even wi’ the wee jabbers, I dinna feel quite myself,” he said, with a rather queasy grimace.

“The air will help, I’m sure. Thank you for asking me to come up with you,” I said, a little shyly. “Just wanted some company?”

“What?” he said, looking up blankly. After a moment, though, he smiled, “Oh, aye, and verra fine company it is, too; but moreso,” he hesitated, a little sheepish now, himself, “I wanted to give ye a chance to walk about.”

“Me?”

“Aye. When my own nightmares come, getting away from my bed entirely helps me shake them faster. Otherwise it's like they’re right there waiting for me when I close my eyes again.”

I wrapped my arms more tightly around myself, silently grateful for his thoughtfulness.

“Do ye…want to talk about it?” he said, tentatively. “Sometimes it helps. Gets the demons out of yer head and into the open. _Sometimes_ ,” he added, with what I thought was a shudder.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. “It was…Oliver.”

He nodded, “Aye, I thought that's what ye cried out. The one that sent the message, no?”

We had settled in a quiet spot on the rear deck, watching the white wake of the rudder gleaming like a scar in the moonlight. Briefly, I recounted my history with Oliver and our communications through the transmitter, ending with his final, harrowing message.

“And I _know_ he’s alive,” I said quietly, my throat feeling very tight, “but in my dreams, I still hear him...hurting and dying, over and over, and me powerless to do anything. Only to _listen_.”

“It's the worst torture there is. We can bear our own pain but not theirs.” 

Somewhere in the dark water came a large splash. A porpoise, maybe. “I should like to thank him someday, your Oliver,” Jamie said, leaning against the railing and looking up at the moon. “We owe him our lives. And for sending ye to us.”

“You won't ever meet him. He can't come through the stones. _Any_ stones.”

My voice was stony and hollow to my own ears, but apparently, Jamie could hear what lay beneath it. “Oh, _Jesus_ , lass,” he said softly, pulling me close.

I hadn't yet had a chance to weep for Oliver, so consumed as I’d been with the panicked journey to Ocracoke, the danger of the battle, and then the relief and excitement of reuniting with my family. But I wept for him, now, for his pain, for the separation. Wept as I don’t think I ever had before, imagining grey eyes and the scent of sandalwood.

Raymond had held me like this countless times, but there was something different about being held by Jamie Fraser. I thought maybe it was the absolute knowledge of the _power_ of those arms. The warrior’s instinct in them. It made his gentleness all the more poignant.  If there was any awkwardness or embarrassment between us over this intimacy, we both ignored it. I remembered a lesson from from an instructor long ago: _First, put yourself in the posture of that which you desire to be; the correct thoughts and words will follow._ I put myself in the posture of Jamie Fraser’s daughter, holding nothing back as I let him rock me and murmur to me in soft Gaelic.

When he moved back to English, though, his voice over my head held a distinct note of strained control. “If ye need to…to return to him...to Oliver...we’ll understand.”

I stepped back, startled. “I didn’t mean to imply— _oh, God_ , please don’t think I’m not happy, _Papa_. I do not wish to leave you, not now that we’re together.”  

“I dinna want ye to leave either, _mo nighean dubh_. God knows, it makes me want to fall apart just thinking about it. I'd fight another army to keep ye.” He smiled, though his face clearly showed the ache of anxiety as he ran his hands backward through his hair. “But ye're a grown woman, Faith. As glad—God, _overjoyed_ —as we are to have ye in our lives...we ken that ye’ve had one of your own before us. People ye love. We’d have ye stay wi’ us forever...but if this Oliver is truly _your man_ …” He didn’t meet my eye, looking off into the moonlit distance. When he spoke again, his voice was impossibly low with emotion. “We canna ask ye to live wi’ out the other half of your heart. We wouldna wish that kind of emptiness on ye. _Never_. No matter how much we...”

My throat was thick. It burned as I tried to think of what to say. Thankfully, he spared me by going on, “And if ye _were_ to leave, to go back through to him…it wouldna have to be forever, no? It’s not painful and dangerous like it is for your mother? Ye could...come back?”

The hope and eagerness in his trembling voice broke my heart with tenderness, and I smiled, despite my distress. “Yes. Yes, I could always come back.”

He looked up and met my eye fully now, beaming with a wide smile of relief. “Good...Aye, that’s verra good.” He pulled me in for a hug, a brief one this time. “So…ye’ll go, then?”

“I will,” I agreed with a sigh as we both turned back to the sea, “but _not now_. Not soon. This is what Ollie wanted: for me to find you. He knew it might be a long time before I returned, if at all. If I truly thought him dying, it would be different, but Raymond said he was safe and I…I trust him.”

Thinking back to that night in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, I marveled at those simple words and the truth beneath. _I trust him. I trust Raymond._  

Jamie pulled me out of my reverie with a slow, measured, “It's...alright that ye miss him. Raymond, I mean. Having _us_ now, your mother and me...it doesna have to make him any less to ye...”

I looked up sharply to study Jamie’s face. No weak, sycophantic gesture, this: he _meant_ it, though it clearly brought him pain. That surprised me considerably, for by all accounts, Jamie was a fiercely jealous creature, to a fault. 

As if reading my skepticism, he hunched down to rest his forearms against the railing, picking absently at his fingernails. “I've learned a lot wi’ Brianna, these last few months, ken. The man who raised her—Frank....It was different wi’ him than wi’ Raymond, for certain. He had had Claire before me, for one. And then _after_ me again, for second.” I heard his teeth grind. _Possessive indeed_ , self-prepossession notwithstanding. “But I ken beyond doubt that he loved Brianna. Not just provided for her; _loved her,_ and she, him. It grieves me something fierce that I didna have the raising of you lassies.  _God_ , some days, it pains me right down to my bones.” He shook his head as if to clear it, “But I canna fault either of ye for having had fathers that loved ye and raised ye well, when I had no way to do so myself. Not that it doesna make my blood boil, all the same, thinking of it sometimes...but that’s wi’ simple _jealousy_ , not truly wi’ anger, I think.”

“You're not angry with Raymond, then?”  

“I’m no’ angry with him for raising and loving ye. For _taking_ ye, weel...that’s another matter, entirely.”

The awkward anxiety of being caught between Raymond and the Frasers clenched me, as it always did. The discomfort it caused made my entire body scream at me to change the subject. Nonetheless, something else made me blurt, quite gracelessly, “Will you ever be able to forgive him, _Papa_?” 

Jamie, seemingly unsurprised by this question, looked at me levelly. “Would _you_? If it were yer own bairn?” From his tone and expression, it wasn’t a rhetorical question. He really was asking me. _If it were Oliver’s child that had been snatched away from me at birth?_

Before I could really even contemplate an answer, though, he blinked and shrugged, as if coming to his senses. “I’m sorry to put ye on the spot, lass. I truly dinna mean to make ye think ill of Raymond. As I say, he raised ye, and the love ye bear him is good and right.” 

I waited. He sighed, massaging his stiff hand. “Raymond did us wrong, aye, we all ken that...but he also saved yer life when ye would otherwise have surely perished. Should I prefer that he’d _not_ intervened and that ye’d be lost to us still, buried under a stone at the _Hôpital des Anges_? No. Not in a thousand years.” His eyes blazed with intensity. “There are people in my past that have genuinely wronged me, _a leannan_. Wounded me. Taken things from me that—” He broke off, swallowing. “I _ken_ what it is to hold anger and hurt against someone forever. And I dinna do so against Raymond.”

“You don’t?” I whispered.

“No, I don’t. Nor is it at all like that thing that gets said, sometimes: ‘there’s naught to forgive.’ There is hurt and anger, and wrongdoing, there, and no mistake. But you, my child, are _here_ and _alive_ and _well_. For me, myself, save out of respect for you and yer love for him, that is enough to leave me content not to think of him or expend anger on his account. It’s simple as that.”

 _That was fair_ , I thought: _live and let live_. That had been more or less my own route to a semblance of peace with the idea of Raymond. Not forgetting, not absolving; simply recognizing that life must go on, and that anger does very little to cultivate a happy existence. I did still love Raymond. Roger had helped me reconcile that fact. And I did still harbor anger over the knowledge of his actions surrounding my birth and beyond. But I knew if I ever saw Raymond again—not just a glimmering shadow of him—it would be to work toward forgiveness, not to rage or shame. Knowing that Jamie was of a like mind was immensely reassuring.

Nonetheless, a shadow still lingered darkly over my heart, and my mouth felt dry as I said, “I don’t think _Maman_ feels that way…I doubt she will ever truly forgive him or even reach peace over it.”

“Ye may be right, _a nighean_ ,” he nodded, and my half-hopeful heart sank. “I ken it pains ye...when she clenches up and turns away at his name. I mean to talk wi’ her about that.” He paused, then drew his eyes tight, as if fighting a headache, speaking urgently, “But ye have to understand what your loss was like for your mother.”

“I _do_ , but—”

‘Ye _don’t_ , _a leannan_ ,” he said gently, adding a smile. “Ye’ve a kind heart, and a discerning mind, but ye canna possibly know all ye must to understand what she’s been through.”

“Tell me, then,” I said.

“It’s _so many_ things, ken…” He dropped his chin and blew out a breath very slowly, gathering his thoughts. “It was a verra hard time between us, her and me. I’d made a promise to her—one that deeply mattered to her, and I broke it, because…weel, ye’ll ken from Fergus _why_ , but it doesna change the fact that I broke my word. And when she came after me, to try to stop me...that’s when we lost ye. To this day, we each of us carry the guilt wi’ us that we might have caused your death by our actions.”

He wasn’t looking for reassurance, I thought, so I didn’t interject; just sat, listening. 

“Claire lost her firstborn child; nearly died herself from the fever; had to—compromise herself to have me freed from the Bastille; and had to bear all of it  _alone_.” His voice broke on the last word, and was hoarse and strained when he resumed. “For once I was freed, I’d fled to Portugal on a mission that took me away for months. It _was_ an important task, and she kent that...but all of it together...it verra nearly broke us apart for good. I didna think she would ever want to see me again.” He gave a humorless _hmm, “_ She _didna_ , in fact.”  

He blinked back the wetness in his eyes and exhaled. “That’s only what it was like for her  _at the time._ ” He found a second crate and sat upon it, facing me with his chin resting on his clasped hands. “Raymond was a particular friend of Claire’s, a true kindred spirit, though she didna realize then the half of how alike they were. They looked out for one another. He understood her.” He furrowed his eyebrows, speaking low and fervently. “For her to learn last year that he _of all people_ should have deceived her, _betrayed her_ in such a heinous way…that he should have withheld his assistance in saving ye, and chose to _steal her joy for himself_...that he placed more value in his own desires than in sparing her the agony of your loss…” He raised his eyes and met mine fully. They burned with sorrow. “It cut her  _deep_ , Faith. Verra… _verra_ deep, indeed.”

I pawed away tears with the back of my hand, remembering the intensity with which Claire had gripped me in the clearing by the stones. I wanted to run below deck and let her hold me again, hold me forever if she wanted to.

He sighed, “I dinna want to say she’ll _never_ think better of him...Maybe if she had him face to face again, it might be—” 

“Again??” As Jamie told of the encounter on the road to Le Havre, my mouth gaped open. “She really… _beat_ him?”

“Aye, badly. He didna fight back. Took every blow. I was so taken up wi’ trying to keep her from killing him, I scarcely had the time to consider whether I'd have liked to add a few blows of my own.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “I kent she had fire in her, but I’d never seen her like that in all my life. She's no’ to be trifled with in a rage.” 

“Clearly not…Thank you for not killing him,” I said, genuinely grateful. “I nearly did myself, when I learned what he’d done; but no matter what he’s done to any of us, I don’t want him dead.” 

He gave a small laugh, “My reasons were no’ nearly so noble as they might be today, but ye're welcome, lass. I'll see to it, if he ever does come round, that he isna harmed.”

I sensed that we were done speaking of Raymond tonight. Apparently, I was correct, for all at once, Jamie issued a violent groan and covered his face with both hands. “Oh, _GOD…_ ”

“What is it? What's the matter?" I leapt up and crossed to him. "Is it the seasickness?"

“I’ve just remembered I have Brianna’s _suitor_ to deal with when we reach Cross Creek.”

“ _Roger_?” I laughed, relieved. “‘Deal with him _how,’_ precisely?

“I dinna ken,” he said, rising morosely from his perch, “but surely there’s a certain duty a father must undertake when a stranger arrives expecting to marry his daughter. I hardly spent more than ten minutes with the man in Wilmington, and havena thought much about him since; but _now_ ,” he groaned again, “I must confront the fact that there's a man come from the future, _sleeping under the same roof as Brianna_ , mind, and planning to whisk her away to wife.”

“You’ll _like_ Roger, I promise,” I wheedled. “Apart from the fact that he got you to me in time, he and I spent a lot of time together on the road. He’s very intelligent and kind; a level-headed sort. And he loves her _very_ much, Papa.” I shot him a teasing smirk, “And what about all that ‘canna live without the other half of your heart’ business, _hmm_? Was that all talk?”

“ _Christ_ , ye’ve your mother’s tongue and no mistake,” he said, with a wry ( _and_ , I thought, _fond_ ) shake of the head. “And it _wasna_ merely ‘talk.’ I meant it, _mean it_ , but…” He fumbled for a minute, clearly flustered, before settling upon, “—she’s verra young, still, to be wed.”

“An almost-twenty-one-year-old woman would be considered quite _mature_ , in this time, would she not? And besides, I don’t think they’re intending to marry at once. Roger didn’t come chasing after her explicitly to be married; he just loves her and meant to see her safe! There’s no need to get in a lather over Brianna and Roger, yet, _Papa_ ; they’re not going to run off and elope from under your nose!”

He cast me a half-amused, half-annoyed kind of glance. “Looking out for your little sister already, are ye? Teaming up wi’ her to take down grumpy, old Da, is that how ‘tis?”

I grinned. “I see no harm in garnering some credit in Brianna’s regard for me, _no_.” My smile slackened a bit. “I...I _do_ hope she likes me….I don’t know at all what it’s like to have a sibling, or to _be_ one.” 

“They can be a right pain in the arse, and no mistake,” he laughed, “but a sister who’s on yer side in life…” He nodded to himself. “‘Tis a gift, _m’annsachd,_ and I hope ye both can know it for yourselves.”

He went quiet again, still clearly worrying about the future. I took his hand. “It will be alright, _Papa_. I promise. Whenever they marry, Roger will treat Brianna _well_. I would swear to it.”

  
**“Aye, he most certainly _will_ ,” he said firmly, straightening and leading us toward the stairs, “else I’ll beat him to a pulp and sell what’s left of him to the natives.”**


	18. Christening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

**“Did you know that if you'd been a boy, your father would have made me name you _Dalhousie_?”**

“ _A tes souhaits_ ,” said Fergus with a carefully-straight face. Faith giggled. 

“I wouldna have MADE ye do any such thing, _Sassenach_ , and ye ken that fine,” Jamie said, with a dark glare for his wife and another for Fergus. He stepped forward to secure the horse’s reins, mumbling, “Though, it’s a fine name and I stand by it.”

They had arrived in Wilmington three days ago, and had been rattling up the road toward Cross Creek ever since, stopping only long enough to purchase additional supplies and retrieve the wagon and horses from the carriage house of the empty print shop. Less than half a day’s journey away from River Run, and had stopped to give the horses a chance to rest. It would be a brief one, though: they had all been so eager to get back, they hadn’t even bothered to send notice ahead to Jocasta.

Faith grinned over at Fergus as she and Claire hopped down from the seat of the wagon. “ _Dalhousie_ , eh? What do you think? Will Marsali go for that one?”

He flashed her a conspiratorial smile as he lead his horse to the stream to drink. “Absolutely _not_. Though I fear for our little one equally as much with some of the names she herself has in mind.”

Faith turned back to her parents, who had gravitated to one another like magnets, and—decades-old naming slights apparently forgiven—now stood glued together by Jamie’s hobbled horse, sharing a shockingly passionate embrace. _Like handsy teenagers_ , she thought with a grin. She cleared her throat pointedly. “Were there any other frontrunners?”

“Realistically,” Claire said, coming up for air, “I think _William_ would have won out, if you had been a boy. For Jamie’s brother, you know.” Her brow furrowed suddenly, and she gave an odd shake of the head. When she resumed, it was to brightly say to Jamie, “We didn’t even really get around to seriously discussing any girls’ names, though, did we?”

Jamie looked down at her, curious. “What would ye have liked to have named her, if ye’d had the chance, _Sassenach_?”

“Oh! Well…” Claire thought for a moment.

“Did you _not_ name me?” Faith asked, surprised and a little crestfallen at this loss.

“No, it was the _Mère Supérieure_ , Mother Hildegarde,” Fergus said. In an undertone meant only for Faith, he added, “They did not think Milady was going to live long enough to do so herself...”

“After one of our mothers, perhaps,” Claire said at last. “Julia or Ellen.”

“Aye, that’s what I’d have liked as well,” said Jamie, smiling. “Suppose ye got ‘Ellen’ covered through Brianna, in the end.” With a look of sudden inspiration, he turned to his eldest daughter. “Would ye like to have a second name as well, _a leannan_?”

Faith blushed with pleasure. “I'd—I’d love it! I’ve never even had a real _surname_ before.” Fergus smiled, as if recalling some fond memory.

“Verra well,” Jamie said with decision. “Come here, then. I’m no’ a priest, but–”

“You _don’t say_?” Claire snorted, smoothing out the gauzy and noticeably-rumpled fabric covering her bosom. 

“ _No’ a priest_ ,” he repeated, with an appropriately long-suffering expression, “but I’ll do until we can have ye more properly re-baptized.”

The three of them joined Fergus at the stream, Jamie kneeling to scoop out a handful of the sparkling water. He gestured for Faith to kneel in the grass. Solemnly, he dipped his fingers into the water, made the sign of the cross over her head, and intoned, “I christen thee…Faith _Dalhousie_ Fraser.”

It was several minutes before any of them regained sufficient composure to speak without wheezing or dissolving into giggles.

When the final spasms of hilarity had subsided, Jamie cleared his throat, repeated the benediction with the water, and bent to place a kiss on her forehead. 

**“Faith _Julia_ Fraser. Welcome to the family, dear one.”**


	19. Someone from home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [incorporating this past chapter into the main body--not new, just housekeeping!]

**Two steps and a glance. That’s all it took.**

Before I could even stop to think, I was yanking my hand free and running in the opposite direction. I could feel every footfall jolting upward to my brain. _Get away. Now._

I fell onto a stone bench beneath one of the oak trees lining the lane. My scalp and hands felt impossibly sweaty, the relative cool of the late afternoon suddenly suffocating. Bending at the waist, I rested my forehead on my knees, focusing on breathing. _In. Out._ I lifted my hair off my neck, praying for relief. None seemed likely.

At the sound of crunching footsteps, I jerked upright again. Roger. 

He sat down slowly beside me, though he didn’t try to touch me or even look in my direction. We sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the rustle of the leaves above and looking out across the lawn. It was a beautiful place, this. That made it worse, somehow.

When he did speak, his voice was steady and quiet. “So…what was _that_ about, then?”

My clothes suddenly felt tight. I shrugged and turned my eyes to the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

_**Mere minutes had passed since our small party had rolled into the wide lane in front of River Run.** _

_“That’s your cousin, Ian,” Fergus had called to me from his horse, indicating the young man barreling down the steps of the manor house and running toward us._

_“He’ll have raised the alarm,” Papa had said, grinning broadly. “The others will be out soon, I expect.”_

_Sure enough, no sooner had my feet touched down from the wagon than I had been literally swept back off them._

_“Sneaking off to your death in the middle of the night with no more than a damn NOTE? What the_ fucking _hell were you_ thinking _, Fae?”_

 _Roger had me squeezed so tightly against his chest that I thought my ribs would crack. “God, I thought you were dead,” he kept saying. I was squeezing right back. I’d intended to tease him for blatantly_ not _following all the instructions in said note, but had no heart for it now, weak with relief and love and gratitude for my friend._

 _He set me down at last and kissed my cheek, any trace of anger vanished in a beaming smile. “Oh, Fae…you_ found _them!”_

 _His joy was infectious, and had spread irresistibly across my own face. “They found_ me _. Thanks to you.”_

 

* * *

 

 

**The current Roger turned his head to look sidelong at my clasped hands. White-knuckled.**

“Fae?” he said, gently. Then, after a beat, “Come on, now.”

My mind was replaying it over and over again: The joy in her voice as she called to them: _Mama! Da!_ Roger taking my hand to lead me forward. _Two steps._ Then seeing that glorious red hair streaming out behind her as she ran down the steps. And Jamie and Claire… _running to embrace their daughter._

“They just look so… _perfect._ ”

_There it was._

The past week hadn’t happened. No reunion at the stones. No long, tender talks on ship or roadside. Roger and I were back on the road south from Richmond. I was greedily hoarding scraps of knowledge in my notebook, terrified at thought of these strangers; that I would never find them; or that I _would_. Planning what I would say…how I would ask if I might be part of their family. Planning my escape route for when I decided to let them go; to make it easier on them; so they wouldn’t feel any guilt over returning to their real daughter.

“ _Hey_ ,” Roger said firmly, now taking my shoulders and turning me to look him directly in the eye. “ _So do you_.”

I shook my head slowly from side to side as my eyes began to well up. “Does she hate me already?”

“ _Hate_ you?”

He sounded truly surprised, which somehow made me all the more agitated. “Yes, _hate_ me.” I focused on the limbs overhead to avoid his gaze, my chin quivering madly, though I was desperately trying to compose myself. “She’d have every right to. I know that.”

“Fae, that’s _ridiculous_.”

“I stole her parents out from under her…could have gotten them both _killed_. Nearly did.” I wiped the wetness from my cheeks, though it was instantly replaced. “She—she must think—”

“But _I don’t_.”

Her voice was different than I’d remembered; different than I’d been imagining since I’d learned her name. But she was just as tall as the burning girl from _Craigh na Dun_ —seemed _taller_ , even, from where I sat frozen on the bench.  And as she stood there, scarcely ten feet away, I could see the small, now-familiar details in her face. Those high cheekbones, like Jamie’s. The pointed chin, like Claire’s. The ears that stuck out just a little… _like mine._

She was staring down at me, Fraser eyes swimming, as she spoke again. “’ _Like meeting someone from home_.’ That’s what you said, right before I went through the stones…You didn’t know?” She took a step forward, haltingly, as though I were a deer she didn’t want to startle.

I felt just like such a creature: quivering, senses heightened, instincts priming me to flee. I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know at all.”

“I wanted to come after you,” she said hurriedly, taking another step forward, “to Ocracoke.” Tears were beginning to slip down her cheeks. “Roger wouldn’t hear of it…but I— _I wanted to come for you_.”

A lump had formed deep in my throat. I could only look up wide-eyed into her face and whisper, “ _Why_?”

Roger gave my shoulder a parting squeeze and stood. As he walked away, I could see him giving me a _See_? kind of smirk as he walked over to greet Jamie and Claire, who had followed Brianna and now stood, looking on at us from from a distance.

Brianna took my hands from my lap. “You saved my life in Scotland. You got me through the stones, to _them_. I’d have come for that reason alone, but to learn that you’re my…”  

The unspoken word hung between us for a long moment.

Then she laughed, blushed, gave a little sob, and pulled me up off the bench to wrap her arms hard around me. Head spinning, I hugged her back.

“I’ll try to be a good one,” I croaked into her shoulder, when I was able to speak again.

“Me too,” she whispered back, squeezing tighter.

We swayed there in the dappled light under the oak tree for a long time. When we broke apart, we were both laughing, crying, and smiling awkwardly at one another.

She handed me a clean handkerchief from her sleeve. “The good news is, we’ve crossed a major sister milestone already.”

“What’s that?” I asked, taking it gratefully.

She grinned. “We’ve each already ruined or lost the other’s clothes.”

 

* * *

 

 

**“God, look at them, _Sassenach_. Can ye even…”**

He tore his gaze from the girls to smile over at their mother, but she was no longer there at his side. He turned to find her a few paces behind, arms crossed and blinking up at the sky.  

“Claire?” He walked around and took her face in his hands, thumbed away the wetness on her cheeks. “These…these are no’ tears of happiness, I think, _mo chridhe_ …”

She shook her head and moved forward to lay her head against his chest.

He waited, just holding her close until she was ready to tell him. 

“For twenty years, I had Bree, thank God…but not you…and not Faith. To me, you were both dead,” she choked on the word, “but I thought about you, always. Longed for the rest of my family. And you…you had no one…Faith had no one. We’ve all just made do with… _bits and pieces_ as best we could.” She sighed raggedly. “And now that we’re all together at last..I’m thinking about when it will all fall apart again. If Bree and Roger go back—”

“Has he said they will?” Jamie demanded, his own heart begin to race in alarm as he turned to look for the wee bastard.

“ _No_ , not yet,” his wife said, drawing him back to her. “But they very well may…and Faith certainly will. She told you so herself…” Her voice cracked, and the tears flowed unchecked. “ _I just don’t know if I can bear it._ ”

Jamie swallowed. “I know…I dread it too, _Sassenach_.” He held her close; then turned her gently to face the oak tree. “But _look_ at them, Claire.”

Their daughters. Both tall and lithe, _radiant_ , but each with their own kind of brilliance. Bree, brash and rugged, burnished gold. Faith’s, softer, delicate clarity, gleaming like silver. _Sun and moon,_ Claire thought. 

“Even if they both should leave tomorrow, you and I will have each other, always. That I swear to ye. And we’ll have _now_.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, speaking low and reverently as they looked on. “Seeing our lassies _alive_ and _together_ and _happy_ on _this day._ And to have such a thing…when we thought it impossible to see either of them again in this life…”

His words choked off with emotion. Claire brought his arms tighter around her, clutching him tight, to give and to take reassurance.

“…I’ve never been happier in my life, _Sassenach_.”

**She drew a steadying breath and leaned her head back against his shoulder, bringing his hand to her lips and bestowing a kiss that assured him that she, too, wouldn’t trade this day for the world.**


	20. For Lost Daughters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER in honor of the one-year anniversary of posting the first chapter of this story to tumblr!

_October, 1767_

**“Faith?”**

It was barely a murmur, but I jumped and nearly fell into the creek as I snapped my head around to face—

_Jamie._

“ _Papa,_ how did you kn—” I turned back away from him and wiped my tears furiously on my sleeve, mortified at how my voice seemed to vanish, “—know I was here?”

I felt the warmth of him settling on the log next to me, his hand coming to rest softly on the small of my back.  “Wee Roger told me what happened, lass.”

 _What happened_. The tears welled up again in force, and my throat went so tight that—

Jamie turned and gathered me to him, letting me sob my heart out onto the shoulder of his clean shirt. “You’ll find your way wi’ Brianna, lass,” he said firmly, smoothing my hair and cupping my head tenderly to him. “I _promise_.”

But nearly two weeks at River Run hadn’t helped me find me any such a way. 

* * *

 

> _It wasn’t any one thing wrong in particular causing the trouble between my sister and me._ _It was_ _a seemingly infinite series of small ones, all culminating in the overwhelming conclusion that Brianna and I might never have a mutually-fulfilling relationship._
> 
> _Everything just seemed to fall apart when the the two of us spoke or interacted for any prolonged period of time. We seemed to be forever misinterpreting each others’ words and tones; making bad assumptions misunderstanding one another at every other turn; not finding the same things funny or interesting; gravitating toward different company._ _…. except, critically, ROGER._
> 
> _He and I had already formed a bond before Brianna and I had met, and THAT was a problem._ _It was what had prompted the showdown this afternoon, in fact. Roger had sought me out to see if I wanted to go for a ride, just the two of us. We hadn’t spent time one-on-one for more than a few minutes since I’d arrived at River Run, and I’d been thrilled to accept his suggestion. I liked Roger greatly, and wanted to hear about how he and Brianna were doing and maybe get his point of view on how I might be better able to connect with her._
> 
> _Brianna, though, had been truly hurt by the notion that Roger wanted to spend time with me without her present, and an argument at the stables had become a full-out shouting match._ _She had all but forgotten me during the altercation, for all of her words were directed at Roger, but my presence was at the core of every word._
> 
> Did he prefer my company to hers? 
> 
> Was he getting bored of her? 
> 
> Was he wanting to make a SWITCH? 
> 
> _I’d slipped quietly away from the brawl, toward the woods, trying my very best not to cry until I’d gotten out of earshot of the stables._

* * *

 

“I can’t do anything right by her, Papa,” I sobbed. All of the pain and hurt clung to me like leeches, stabbing me with guilt. “Everything I try— _anytime_ I try to act _differently_ , to reach her or understand better, just— _backfires_ , and she hates me all the more for it.”

“She doesna hate ye, Faith,” Jamie said sharply. “I see your hurt, but I see hers, too. She _doesna_ hate ye,” he repeated. “Ye must trust me on that, at least.”

I nodded as I pulled back and wiped my eyes. He meant well, but it was wishful thinking, at best. 

“Though I must confess something to ye, mo chridhe,” he said, of a sudden, “sometimes, I feel precisely the same.”

That took me aback and I coughed, sniffling to catch my breath. “Feel how?”

“That I canna do anything right by her.”

I peered at him, my eyes still burning. “Truly? But you two seem—”

“Aye, we _seem_ ,” he said, nodding, “but it’s something we have to work at, aye?” Jamie rose and knelt by the water, rummaging lightly in the sand. “Ye know, for as much as you seem a copy of your mother and Brianna one of me, you and I are quite remarkably alike, _mo nighean dubh_.”

 _God_ , how I loved Jamie Fraser—because he was my father, yes; because of all he’d done for me, yes; but also simply for himself. The way he had placed his immediate attention on finding skipping stones to give me time to compose myself, to allow me privacy and time to absorb what he was about to say without feeling I was under scrutiny.

“How are we alike, Papa?” I asked, feeling the rush of tenderness flood through me despite my inner turmoil. Yes, I could easily see why he’d made a lifelong impression upon Claire Beauchamp. Jamie Fraser was a man of heart and of care; of _love_. 

“Well, in many ways, in fact, in our manner and look….but at present, I mean that we’re both outsiders of this new family,” he said, skipping a stone thrice before it plonked into the deep water. “Claire and Brianna—they’ve had one another for twenty years, from the very beginning. They ken one another: their moods and tendencies; _everything_.” He skipped another, managing five jumps this time. “And compared to that, you and I….well, we can hardly be anything but at a disadvantage, aye?”

I made a sound in my throat, part snort, part sob. I knew, alright. 

He went on. “You and I are just getting to know one another, true. But on top of that, _I’m_ still learning Claire again and getting to know Brianna for the first time; and I make mistakes in plenty, in that.” He managed to skip a stone clear to the far bank of the creek. “There’s love between Bree and I, yes, and true affection and liking, too; and yet I’ll say something that vexes her, and I willna ken what in _God’s_ name to say to make it right. Claire is the only reason I havena driven Brianna to clobber me upside the head these last months.” 

Despite everything, I laughed, and Jamie smiled, too. “You and I are alike,” he repeated, “in that we’re still strangers to them, Faith: beloved, important, _worthy_ of their love—but still strangers, in one form or another. It’s joy to build these bonds that join the four of us, _utter joy_ — but not _effortless_ , aye?”

“No indeed,” I laughed darkly. “It seems more effort than joy, for me.”

“But it _will_ be joy, when the two of ye connect at last, aye?” he asked, looking over in concern. “Ye do _wish_ to have something better wi’ her?”

“Yes,” I said at once, “ _God_ , it’s keeping me up at night longing for it, Papa. I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to _understand_ Brianna enough to be a good sister. Everything I do is a misstep—it seems I fail to meet her expectations every single day, in some way or other. We get into the same bed every night, and I’m... _afraid_! Afraid to say anything to her at all! I seek out Fergus so often because I’m _scared_ to take up too much time and energy from Roger and Ian, and even more so from you and Maman—because I don’t want her to feel I’m taking too much of her people for myself.”

There was true consternation on his face at that, verging on anger. “Has she said as much? That she resents the time ye—”

“No!” I said hastily, waving my hands in dismissal. “No, not at all, I just…NO, I …” I sighed. “It’s only that I tend toward anxiety and avoidance, when I’m afraid, _comprends_?” I clenched the fabric of skirt in my fists, not meeting his eye. “Fixate and flee. That’s my way.”

_Lord, wasn’t that the truth? That’s why it had taken me MONTHS and intense encouragement from Oliver to leave the twenty-second-century and actually set out to find my family—because I’d been too caught up in the what ifs and my many, many crippling fears. It’s why going directly to Ocracoke had been such a leap—I’d faced the danger head-on, and WON._

_Only, the tragedy was that I hadn’t managed to ground that victory in my heart, going forward._ _I wished I was the woman who’d battled at the stones; but here, in this, I was no more than a small, scared girl._

“No,” I repeated, doing my best to reassure him, “and please, _don’t_ tell her—or anyone—that I suggested such a thing. It’s just…” I looked up to the canopy of trees overhead, as if the correct words might be found up there, “— _difficult_ … in all the ways I perhaps feared it would be. And…it makes me feel as though I’m not supposed to be here, after all.”

“Listen to me, now.” Jamie knelt and took my hand in his, my cheek in his other. “You’re _our daughter,_ Faith, our child; our _firstborn_ child, and nothing,” he gave me a gentle shake for emphasis, eyes blazing into mine, “ _nothing—_ not even Brianna—will ever come between you and your mother and me. Do ye hear me, lass? Not _ever_. I willna allow it.”

So vehement were his words, so intense his guileless blue eyes, that I couldn’t help but believe. 

I nodded and put my arms around his neck. I savored the comfort of his words and his embrace, trusting in them, at least while their love encircled me. 

A long time later, he kissed my cheek and pulled me to my feet, leading me to the water’s edge, where we had a friendly rock-skipping competition. He won, of course, but he didn’t gloat, and even taught me how better to adjust my grip and wrist.

“I think, too,” he said abruptly, after I’d managed a ten-skip run, “she’s that wee bit jealous, ken?” 

“Bree? Jealous of _me_?”

“Aye,” he said, brows drawn as he lobbed a stone of his own. “Can ye no’ see it? You’ve such a strong sense of self, Faith,” he went on, at the shake of my head. “The steadiness and sweetness ye have, coupled wi’ your prodigious learning and all the things ye’ve done and seen. _Everyone_ admires ye so greatly, Brianna included.” He picked up another stone and rubbed it between his fingers. “And that’s so verra far from where Bree is, in her own life.” 

“People love Bree, too!” I countered, “Hell, Ian hangs on her every word! She’s beautiful; she’s funny. Her paintings are exquisite. And Lord, you call _me_ a prodigy but she’s a _genius. S_ he can do things with numbers at a speed I can’t even fathom! So don’t make me out to be some marvel,” I said, heating up in defense of her, “when she’s just as—” 

“I know, I _know_ , Faith,” Jamie said, laughing a little and touching my shoulder in reassurance. “She’s got just as much to be proud of as you. But,” he said pointedly, finding another rock, “Brianna came back through the stones to us at a crucial time in her life—a time when a lass of her upbringing would be making important decisions about her occupation, her life’s direction, aye? University or marriage or whatever else….and _she chose to come here._ ” 

He skipped the rock but missed atrociously and ended up clattering it on a boulder halfway across. 

He sighed. “Lord knows, I thank Him every day that she did, if only to give us the chance to be a family for a time, at least… but it’s hard for her, ken? She doesna ken what is to be her place here. _You’ve_ your healing, your languages; and on top of it, you’ve been accustomed since a bairn to moving about and adapting to new times and places and folk. Brianna….” He shook his head again. “She's—still so _young_ aye? Young in age and in experience; and she’s come to a new time not even knowing properly who she wishes to be, be it here _or_ in her own place. Do ye see, lass?”

I felt my heart twinge with pain and sadness—not for myself. _For my sister._

“Yes, I see, precisely.”

I had come to River Run craving so deeply to be loved and to feel as if I belonged, that I hadn’t fully stopped to consider how greatly my sister was yearning for the same things. It had been a foregone conclusion, to me, that Brianna was established and confident and seeing me as an outsider—but now that he put it that way—

_Brianna must feel as lost as me._

“It may take more time, yet,” my father was saying, hugging me in that way that made me feel bowled over by utter warmth and safety, “but you’re doing just fine, dear heart. And the two of ye will find your rhythm, in time. She just wants to find her place, same as the rest of us.”

* * *

 

**“ _This feels very official, does it not?_** ” Fergus whispered to me in French, his eyes flicking around Jocasta’s huge dining table where sat in conference Fergus, me, Brianna, Roger, Ian, Jamie, and Claire.

“ _Definitely_ ,” I whispered back in the same language, grinning, “ _I should have brought my gavel_!” 

It did feel a bit absurdly formal, for all of us to be gathered here in broad daylight with no food before us, as though we were conducting a meeting of some board of trustees….but it _was_ a matter of family business, after all. We’d been taking our ease these last two weeks, enjoying the chance to be together, but it was time to begin making plans to get back to Wilmington and take possession of the print shop before the season turned cold and winter set in. 

Jamie had conveniently selected this time, knowing that Jocasta would be napping. As grateful as I knew he was for his aunt’s lavish hospitality toward the overabundant brood of relations that had taken up residence under her roof, we all knew it was best to conduct these planning discussions without her formidable presence looming, else we would all be obliged to submit to her _suggestions—_ and this next phase of life was about the _Frasers_. 

“If you’re _quite finished_ ,” Jamie was saying, giving Fergus and me a stern look that made both of us grin like naughty children before quieting, “I’ve been in communication wi’ the landlord in Wilmington and he’s agreed to let us have the vacant shop next door at half price, as it’s gone unrented for so long.” 

“Another shop?” piped up Wee Ian. “What for, Uncle?” 

“A surgery,” Claire blurted, transparent in her overflow of excitement. “A place where people can come to get medicines, get their teeth seen to, wounds mended, and so on.” 

I loved seeing Maman’s passion shining through her usual reserve. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. 

“And you’re going to be the healer, Auntie Claire?” 

“Aye, your Auntie is a rare fine healer, Ian, but so is your cousin,” Jamie was saying, inclining his head toward me. 

“ _Oui, superbe_!” Fergus added. “You should have seen how she mended me on our journey.” 

Roger, damn him, piped in about some small scratch I had tended on the road south from Richmond, and I smiled but found my cheeks reddening and my gaze darting toward Brianna across the table from me. Her face was stony. 

_God, everyone, change the subject, stop talking about me, please, PLEASE change the subject!_

Thankfully, Claire did. “So, we’ll have the two shops operating side by side. There seems to be a lack of printers AND healers in Wilmington at present, so with all of us working together, we should be able to turn a profit fairly quickly, pay back Jocasta her loan, and be operating on our own two feet financially by next summer, if we manage the books judiciously.”

“Well said, Sassenach,” Jamie said, making a note with his quill. “Now, Faith, lass, you’re of course to work mostly wi’ your mother at the surgery; Fergus and Roger will be needed wi’ me at the print shop; Brianna and Ian,” he said, turning to the two youngest of our contingent, “you’ll be of great use in supporting _both_ establishments, going back and forth to—” 

“I could be the one to manage the books,” Brianna said suddenly, her face brightening more fully than I’d seen her in weeks. Her voice was urgent with enthusiasm, in fact. “I got top marks in my accountancy courses, and I’d love to try my hand at it.”

“Do not worry yourself, Brianna.” Fergus met Bree’s eye with a charming, apologetic smile. “It’s been my _own_ task for years, Milord’s bookkeeping. It would be no great task at all for me to continue doing so.” 

I kicked Fergus under the table. He grunted and gave me a _WHAT?_ kind of look. I gave him one in return ( _‘Don’t call the one thing for which she’s excited ‘no great task at all’!), but_ he didn’t seem to comprehend. 

“True,” Brianna said sharply and carefully, her nostrils flaring, and I couldn’t tell if she was trying not to cry or not to throttle Fergus, “but _you’re_ also needed as one of the primary writers for the paper, in addition to Da. Let me take this part of your plate. I’m excellent at math and figuring. I know I can do it.” 

Fergus gaped and stammered a bit. If _I_ was at odds with Brianna in our sibling relationship, he _certainly_ was. Despite having several months advance in opportunities to get to know him, Brianna hadn’t known quite what to make of this pseudo-sibling, and vise versa. 

“Aye, you’re certainly good at maths, hen,” Roger said gently. Damn him, he had the gall to look uncomfortable as Fergus at this turn of events. “But you’ve never actually managed a business operation before. Fergus has _._ Don’t you think he might be the more natural choice?”

Brianna looked as though Roger had slapped her. Despite her height, her Red-Jamie-intensity and general ill humor these last few weeks, she looked so young and vulnerable and hurt, I wanted to take her into my arms as I’d done at Craigh na Dun. _Jesus H Christ, Rog_ , I wanted to scream at him, _YOU should come to her support first above everyone, you —_

“Brianna can do it,” I said, bolting to my feet before I even stopped to consider the movement, and drawing all twelve eyes directly to me like laser beams. Bree looked as startled as the rest of them, but wary, to boot, and also…touched?  

I balled my fists and plowed forward, trying not to look at her. No fixating. No fleeing. “She’s the best with numbers and reckoning of any of us at this table. You should have seen her the other day helping Ulysses with calculations for the provisions order from New Bern. She did it all in her head, like _THAT!”_ I snapped my fingers for emphasis. _“_ Calculations _you_ would have had to do on paper, Fergus. _Sorry_ , but it’s true” I said, with a significant look and a regretful grimace, though it was indeed the truth. “She’s the best equipped of all of us to take care of the finances. It’s got to be Bree.”  

“Fergus?” Jamie asked with raised eyebrows, carefully, _neutrally_. 

Fergus saw the fire in my expression and—bless him—swallowed back a retort. “Very well. The job is yours, Brianna.” 

She took a deep breath and smiled almost shyly.  “Thank you. If I get stuck at any point, you’ll help me?” 

“Of course, ma chère,” he said with grace and a smile that said _all was well._ I squeezed his hand under the table. 

“Well, then, that settles it,” Jamie said, making a note on his paper. “Brianna, lass, you shall be our _financière._ ” 

We moved hastily on to other business, to dates and plans, packing lists and arguments over whether or not Rollo would be joining us; but Brianna made sure to catch my eye as soon as possible. For once, her expression was soft, open, no hostility or suspicion. She simply smiled and mouthed, “ _Thank you_.” 

My breath caught and my heart squeezed as I smiled back and silently whispered.  _“Got your back,_ ” and the grin she tried and _failed_ to suppress melted my heart completely. 

I could have sworn I saw the corner of Jamie’s mouth twitching. As I smiled at him, the twitch blossomed into a beaming glow just for me. _Good lass._

* * *

 


End file.
